Coming Of Age
by Bill K
Summary: Princess Usagi encounters a strange being who puts her through a series of tests that push the young senshi to the limits of her physical and mental endurance.
1. Moonstruck

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 1: "Moonstruck"

A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

* * *

Sailor Moon and all related characters are ©)2009 by Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha and Toei Animation and are used without permission, but with respect. Story and unrelated characters are ©)2009 by Bill K.

* * *

Makoto Kino breezed down the corridor toward classroom one with well-concealed anxiety and trepidation. She was anxious because she was late for class and she hated being late, particularly when she was teaching the class. That was a bad example to set for her students. Her trepidation came from having to substitute for Ami on short notice. As usual, Ami had taken on so many projects that it was becoming physically impossible to teach the Princess and the Asteroid Senshi, as the Elder Senshi did on a rotating basis in addition to their other duties. Makoto had noticed Ami's anxiety over her situation that morning and volunteered to take on the extra session rather than subject the students to another session with a computerized holographic display.

But now she was having anxiety of her own. Makoto never felt very confident in her ability to teach proper subjects like Advanced Aerodynamic Physics or Geometric Calculus, even with the aid of the teaching computer system installed in the classroom for her use. And she felt even less confident doing it on short notice without any preparation. But Ami needed the respite and there wasn't anything she wouldn't do for Ami - - or one of her other friends. Fortunately Usa and the Asteroids were close enough to her that she didn't feel the need to dress up beyond her familiar filament-weave jeans and pullover top. Makoto reached the door, took a deep breath, and went in.

"GOOD MORNING, MISS MAKOTO-MA'AM!" Palla-Palla cheerfully exclaimed. That brought a smile to Makoto. You could always depend on Palla-Palla to be a way to brighten your day. But as she got to her teaching podium, Makoto noticed there were only four students in class instead of six.

"Good morning, Palla-Palla," Makoto replied. "Good morning, everyone. I'll be filling in for Ami this morning."

"All right, no 'teacher-bot'," Cere-Cere mused happily.

"Is Jun-Jun still not feeling well?"

Hotaru looked down while the other three Asteroids instantly tensed.

"Um," Cere-Cere finally offered, "no, Sensei. She's, well, still not feeling well. I'm sorry."

"I see," Makoto nodded, making a mental note to let Ami know about this. Jun-Jun was undergoing therapy with Ami to help the girl deal with the tremendous guilt she felt over the revelation that she'd led a person to his death during her time with the Dead Moon Circus. According to the computer's attendance records, this was the fifth straight day Jun-Jun had been absent. "Well, tell her we all miss her. Now, anybody know anything about Usa?"

Now it was Hotaru's turn to tense, but the black-haired waif didn't answer.

"Maybe you ought to check Helios's room," Ves-Ves said with malicious glee. That drew an involuntary snicker from Cere-Cere and a crimson blush from Hotaru. Typically, Palla-Palla was mystified. Due to necessary circumstances, Helios was staying in the palace for an extended time.

"Well, as much a fan as I am of true love," Makoto mumbled as she typed a text message to Queen Serenity, "there are other things in life that demand attention, too."

* * *

Helios sat in his quarters in the palace, his legs crossed in a lotus position and his head tilted back slightly. The room was sparsely furnished, with only a bed, a table and a single chair in it. The Dream Guardian sat in the chair with his eyes closed. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest was the only sign that he still lived. His white hair and pale skin seemed to glow slightly in the low light of the room. Time passed unnoticed as Helios monitored the dreams of others.

Finally his head rolled forward. It was necessary from time to time to deeply monitor the dreaming, more deeply than he did at other times, and this was one of those times. But the time had passed and he could return to dividing his attention between dreams and reality. Helios took a deep, cleansing breath and opened his eyes. To his immense surprise, he found his beloved, Princess Usagi, sitting on the bed across from him.

"Maiden?" he exclaimed with surprise. "How did you get into my room?"

"By-passed the security system," the pink-tressed teen shrugged. She wore a white knit blouse and beige slacks.

"Your father approves of this?"

"He doesn't have to know," Usa smirked slyly.

"Maiden, I swore to your father that I would be on my best behavior," Helios warned.

"We're not doing anything!" the girl proclaimed impatiently. "In spite of what Pop thinks, I can control myself. I know we're not supposed to - - no matter how much I want to."

"Then," Helios began, puzzled, "why are you here?"

"I wanted to watch you work," Usa replied with earnest fascination. "That's what you were doing, wasn't it?"

"Yes. I am still able to monitor the dreams of Earth from here. But do you not find it boring to simply watch me - - not move?"

"Nothing you do could ever be boring, Helios," Usa smiled. "I love watching you when you're quiet and concentrating on the dreams. You look so serene." She looked down, momentarily embarrassed. "I want to cradle your head in my lap when you're like that. And stroke your hair and your forehead."

"A most tempting scenario, Maiden," Helios replied. "But you have other responsibilities in your life, do you not?"

"You're using that word again," Usa scowled.

"It is a word, I fear, that will haunt you for the rest of your life, Maiden," Helios said as he rose from the chair. The Dream Guardian crossed over, gently picked up Usa's hand and eased her to her feet. "Are you not now supposed to be in school?"

"I don't care about any of that!"

"Maiden," Helios continued, gripping the girl by her upper arms, "I will not be the cause of your failure to advance, either mentally, physically or spiritually. We have our entire lives together, this I pledge. And because of that pledge, you can spare some of your present for other things besides me."

"But Helios, all I want is you!" Usa argued. "I don't care about Aeronautical Physics or Conversational English or any of that other stuff! I just want to be with you!"

Suddenly Helios bent down and captured her mouth with his. Usa felt her heart leap and she leaned into the kiss, even as his hands around her arms kept her at bay. The two kissed long and hard, and when they parted the young Princess felt her senses swimming.

"Your devotion touches me to my soul," Helios said softly. "But if you truly love me, you will attend to your duties to yourself and your position and become the best you can be."

"You don't play fair," Usa sighed, still reeling from the passion of the kiss.

"When it comes to something I care deeply about," Helios grinned, "no, I do not."

It was a few moments before Usa realized Helios was walking her to the door. It hissed open and he backed her into the corridor. Her disappointment was clear on her face.

"Go to class," he told her. "I will meet you when you are done. Perhaps we can work on your homework together."

"It's a date," Usa grinned. Spirit renewed, she turned to head off.

Queen Serenity was leaning against a wall, giving her an impatient look.

"Nothing happened, Mom!" the Princess huffed as she walked off. Serenity moved to follow.

"I trust you," Serenity answered.

"Then why are you here?"

"Mako-Chan texted me and said you weren't in class."

Usa simmered.

"Usa, please don't make the mistake I made when I was your age," Serenity pleaded. "One of the reasons I didn't pay attention in high school was because I spent half my time drawing hearts in my notebook and writing your father's name in them." That brought back a flood of memories to the Princess from her times back in the twentieth century. "I regret that now. I wouldn't be the addle-brained air-head I am now if I'd paid attention back then. When you're young, you don't realize how important education can be."

"OK, Mom, I get it!" Usa exclaimed.

"And don't try to put me off, you little brat! I've lived with you for seventeen years now and I know all of your tricks! I want you and Helios to have a chance to be together, but if you're just going to take advantage of things, I'll lock you in your room until you're twenty!"

"Whatever," the teen scowled.

Thankfully for her they reached Classroom One. Usa went in, greeted by a derisive chuckle from Ves-Ves. Makoto glanced over at Serenity with a "what are you going to do" expression. Then the door closed. Serenity turned to go back to the Royal Chambers. Then she stopped.

"Just how did she get into Helios's quarters in the first place?" the Queen pondered. A small smile crossed her mouth. "Honestly, that girl can be positively devious sometimes. I wish I had been that devious when I was her age. I wouldn't have been so frustrated."

* * *

After school was out, Ves-Ves and Palla-Palla entered their quarters. Palla-Palla instantly headed for her corner. Ves-Ves glanced sympathetically at the closed door to Jun-Jun's room.

"Jun-Jun is in there," Palla-Palla said as she sat down at her computer station, "but she doesn't want to talk to anyone."

"Peeking in on her thoughts?" Ves asked.

"Palla-Palla doesn't do it on purpose," the teen replied and Ves sensed her sister's helplessness, "but when Jun-Jun is like this, she's kind of hard to shut out."

"Yeah, I guess. I wish she'd get past this." Ves glanced back at her sister. "Homework?"

"Palla-Palla wants to be done before dinner. Miss Makoto-Ma'am says she still has a lot of work to do on Japanese con - - conju - - on the way she writes Japanese."

"Well I'd help you with that, but I think you probably want to pass," Ves chuckled.

"Thank you very much, but Miss Makoto-Ma'am told Palla-Palla that she should learn to do it herself and Miss Makoto-Ma'am knows best."

"Yeah, she does a lot of times," Ves nodded.

She strolled over to a chair and pulled a crystal viewer off the shelf. Popping in a crystal with the latest feature stories on martial arts, Ves started to read. Then she noticed Palla-Palla staring at her.

"What?" Ves asked, mild challenge in her voice.

Palla-Palla stared.

"I'll do my homework later."

Palla-Palla continued to stare. Ves went back to her crystal viewer.

Palla-Palla continued to stare.

"All right!" Ves scowled. She tossed the crystal viewer onto the shelf and moved to her computer station. "You're getting as bad as Cere!"

Palla-Palla turned back to her computer station with a smirk of satisfaction on her face.

Moments later, Cere-Cere walked in. She had detoured on her way home from school to chat with Hotaru. As she entered, Ves was at her computer, struggling with the night's assignment. Palla-Palla was at her computer, struggling as well with much more simple subject matter. That was immaterial to Cere at the moment. Her chief concern was her other sister.

"Jun?" Cere ventured, knocking on the door. There was no answer. After a moment's indecision, Cere whispered, "Access, please."

The door opened softly. Ves looked up and silently wished her sister luck. Cere entered the room.

Jun was laying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Cere inched inside, inched until she was by the bed. Jun wouldn't look at her.

"Kino-Sensei asked about you today," Cere told her.

"That's nice," Jun mumbled. "I'm sorry I missed her. I always enjoy having Kino-Sensei as our teacher."

"She said she hoped you were feeling better," Cere added. "Usa and Hotaru do, too."

"Thanks," Jun replied in a small, shy voice.

The silence in the room suddenly became oppressive.

"Jun, please stop this!" Cere wailed. "None of us are proud of those days! But curling up into a little ball isn't the answer!"

"It's a little more complicated than 'those days', Cere," Jun murmured. "I killed someone."

"Well, maybe I did, too! Ves probably has more notches on her belt than anyone! But we go on! We try to make up for what we did! It's the only thing we can do!"

"How do you make up for that, Cere? How do you make up for a human life?"

"It's like that old saying," Cere persisted. "For ever life you've taken, you enrich a hundred in compensation."

There was a pause. Then, for the first time in a while, Jun turned and looked at Cere.

"Who said that?" Jun asked.

"I don't know! I think he was some - - doctor - - or medicine man - - in some tribe or - - I don't know! The point is you can't go back and change the past! It's there and it's always going to be there! And laying here feeling guilty isn't going to help make up for that past! You have to get up and want to be different and be different!"

"Mizuno-Sensei tells me the same thing," Jun mumbled. "So does Hino-Sensei."

"There, see?"

"I just can't do it, Cere."

Cere's face began to twist in sadness. "Why?"

"Does helping people just to make up for what I did in the Circus Days make me a better person?" Jun asked. "Look at The Queen. She helps people because she wants to, not because she's trying to make up for something she did. Or The Princess: she tries to help people because she knows it's right, not to gain brownie points in her life."

"Does it matter why you help people?" Cere asked. "If you ask me, I think the only thing that really matters is that you help people."

Jun glanced back at her from over her shoulder.

"I mean, I do it because it's expected of me as a senshi, you know," Cere continued. "I'd much rather be tending a garden or watching the fashion streams, but that's what's expected of me. And this place is way better than the circus or the orphanage, so I do it to stay here. Now maybe that doesn't make me as good as The Queen or Usa, but I'm still one of the good guys."

Cere sat on the side of the bed next to Jun.

"But how do I look someone in the eye," Jun asked, "knowing what I did? All the good acts in the world won't wash that away."

"I guess all you can do is tell yourself that it was another time and another place, and you weren't as smart as you are now. And that it won't happen again, because you are smarter than that now."

"What if it does?"

"It won't," Cere said adamantly.

"But what if," Jun began, "what if I have to kill somebody - - to protect the Princess or the people of Crystal Tokyo?"

"Jun, killing someone for a dream mirror is a lot different than killing to protect someone," Cere maintained.

"But it's still killing," Jun said. Cere felt her eyes smarting.

"Oh, if you don't get out of that bed and start living again, I'm," fumed Cere. "I'm going to get Ves to beat you up!"

"Well," Jun replied, rolling over onto her back. Some of her melancholy had lifted. "I doubt you could get Ves to do anything you wanted her to do. But maybe you're right. I suppose I should stop hiding. It's just," and Jun took a deep, hissing breath, partly from the anguish she felt, "I know word has gotten around the palace. And I just can't stand the thought of getting 'those' looks again."

"You know we've got your back," Cere told her.

"I know," Jun sighed, forcing a small smile onto her mouth. "And I've got to face people sooner or later."

Cere gave ground to allow Jun to swing herself up to a sitting position. Jun's shoulders seemed to slump.

"I just hope something doesn't come up for a long while that needs the senshi's attention," Jun continued. "Because I'm not sure I trust myself to ever be Sailor Juno again."

"Baby steps, you know," Cere said, offering her sister her hand. "First we get you out in the sun. You've been cooped up in here too long. You're beginning to wilt."

Ves looked up from her computer when she heard the door hiss open. Cere was standing there with a chagrined Jun.

"About time you dragged yourself out of there," Ves said. "If you were in there any longer, I was going to have to start running this bunch."

"God forbid," Jun replied humorously.

Suddenly Palla-Palla was right up in Jun's face, holding her hands and earnestly looking in her eye. It wasn't much of a stretch, since the two girls were nearly the same height, but it was startling. Jun swallowed, wondering what was on her sister's mind and if the telepath could see what she was thinking and feeling.

"Palla-Palla is glad you're feeling a little better," she told Jun. "Please don't ever, ever, ever think you're a bad person and not someone we want to be with. Because it's not true."

"You tell her, Stupid," Ves added.

"OK," Jun sighed. "I'm sorry I put you all through this. It's just . . ."

"I know," Ves said, wedging in between Cere and Palla-Palla and grasping Jun's upper arm. "I been there. The day it becomes easy is the day you start being cocky and sloppy, and that's the minute it all starts going down hill - - like the Circus Days."

Jun lowered her eyes, but nodded her agreement.

"Incoming message for Cere-Cere," Cere's work station announced.

Everybody looked as Cere walked over and engaged her computer. A face appeared on the computer screen. It was a woman of Brazilian descent, probably somewhere on either side of fifty. She was fighting a losing battle against her age, but still tried to exude an aura of vitality and glamor. Her black hair was pulled back stylishly from her face, her brows were manicured and her face expertly done up to maximize her strengths and minimize her flaws.

"Chica!" she exclaimed, wearing a smile that Ves cynically noted seemed artificial. "Oh my goodness, it's been so long since I've seen you! My, but you've grown up to be a beauty!"

"A-Aunt Pilar?" Cere gasped. This drew surprised looks from her sisters, for they had always assumed that Cere had no living relatives. "What . . . why are you calling me?"

"I wanted to let you know I was coming for you, dear!" Pilar said with over the top enthusiasm.

"C-Coming for me?" Cere stammered. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't be dense, dear," Pilar replied patronizingly. "I've come to collect you. We're going back home."

"Home?"

"To Brasilia!"

Continued in Chapter 2


	2. The Unwelcomed Guest

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 2: "The Unwelcome Guest"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

In a room near the Royal Chambers that was usually used to entertain close friends, Helios, Protector of Dreams, and the Princess Usagi sat at a table. Usa, her long legs curled up underneath her as she sat on the chair, typed into a computer work station as Helios watched her. She was doing her homework and he was ostensibly helping her, though the teen was smart enough to do her own homework. As such, he was merely keeping her company.

Suddenly she stopped typing and glanced at him. Her red eyes twinkled and her full mouth pulled into a warm smile. Helios accepted the look gratefully, but grew concerned when it lingered.

"Maiden," he gently prodded. "You must concentrate."

"I am," she replied, playing the coquette that she recently learned to play so well.

"On your homework."

"You're much more interesting."

"Discipline, Maiden," Helios told her. "The ability to focus on a task and see it through to the end. It is a skill you will need."

"That's easy for you to say," Usa frowned.

"I find you no less attractive than you do me, Maiden," Helios persisted, brushing the white hair from his eyes. "But I am able to focus upon the task at hand, despite wishes to the contrary. You must resist the desire to give into temptation that is your lineage."

"Are you saying I'm just like Mom?" Usa bristled. "That's a rotten thing to say."

"My respect for the Queen is unquestioned," Helios explained. "But she retains a youthful mind and that youthful mind, like yours, is too easily swayed by pleasant sensations and experiences."

"Well I like that!" the Princess huffed. "Just how dim do you think I am?"

"Easily distracted is not an equivalent to ignorant, Maiden," Helios said. "I meant no offense. Now please return to your geometry work."

Usa turned back to her screen, then paused and looked back at him with a cocked eyebrow.

"I'm working on history," Usa said.

Helios glanced at the screen and realized she was right. The look of genuine, embarrassed surprise on the face of the Dream Guardian caused Usa to snort and she quickly melted into giggles at her love's expense. When she calmed enough, Usa reached out and caught her love's hand, giving it a squeeze. It took a few more moments for her giggles to die out, though.

"What amuses you, Maiden?" Usa heard Helios say. Impossibly, though, the voice came from the door behind her. The Princess turned and looked behind her. Helios stood in the doorway, looking at her with benign curiosity.

"Helios?" Usa asked. Then she turned back quickly. The Helios she had been sitting across from for nearly an hour was gone. Confused, she turned back. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Helios asked, walking over to her.

"You were sitting right across from me! You've been there for an hour, helping me study!"

"Maiden, I have been with your father for much of this hour."

Usa turned back and stared at the empty seat across from her. A chill ran up her spine.

"Then who was here?" she whispered.

* * *

"Back to Brasilia?" Cere gasped.

"Isn't it wonderful, Chica?" her Aunt Pilar effused on the vid-com monitor. "Won't you be so glad to come back to your native country?"

"But I like it here," Cere said.

"That's nice to hear. But wouldn't you rather be back home, in familiar surroundings," Pilar contended, "with family again?"

The other Amazons winced privately. Being orphans, or a reject in Palla-Palla's case, family was always a sore spot with them. They looked anxiously from the woman on the computer screen to Cere.

"I have responsibilities here, Aunt Pilar," Cere began.

"I'm certain we can iron all of that out, dear," Pilar persisted.

"Look, don't waste your time making the trip here from Sao Paulo, Aunt Pilar," Cere tried to say.

"Dear, I'm already here!" Pilar announced. Cere seemed to go pale. "And I'll be over as soon as I can get settled. You'll be back in Sao Paulo in no time."

"But . . .!"

"Good-bye, dear," Pilar sang and ended the communication. Cere stared in amazement for a few moments, then sagged back in her chair in frustration.

"Who the Hell was that?" Ves demanded.

"My Aunt Pilar," Cere scowled.

"Are you going to go away?" Palla-Palla asked, tears bubbling in her eyes and a forlorn terror in the tone of her voice.

"No," Cere replied firmly.

"She seems to think you are," Jun countered.

"She can think whatever she wants," Cere said sourly.

"Cere, I didn't know you had any living relatives," Jun told her.

Cere sighed loudly. "Aunt Pilar is my mom's older sister. She's part of the 'in' society in Sao Paulo, although I always got the feeling that she wasn't nearly as important as she made out. But she knows all the important people and attends all the gallery openings and seasonal balls."

"I always thought your folks came from money," Ves judged. "So how did you end up in Quatro Pai if your folks were loaded?"

"My folks weren't 'loaded'," Cere bristled. "Daddy was a diplomat. We were well off, but we weren't rich."

"Sounds like you were rich," muttered Ves.

"ANYONE WITH TWO PESOS IN THEIR POCKET WAS PROBABLY RICH TO YOU!" Cere bellowed. Jun put a hand on her shoulder and calmed her. "But we were well off. And we always had invitations to all the cultural glamor spots in the city because of Daddy's position." Cere darkened. "The air car accident ended all of that."

"Couldn't your Aunt Pilar take you in?" Jun asked.

"She wouldn't take me in," Cere replied. A shadow of repressed anguish draped over the girl's expression. "A ten year old girl would have been too much of a burden to her. She had more important things to do - - than take care of me."

"Real piece of work," Ves sympathized gruffly. "So all of a sudden she wants to take care of you? Why?"

"I don't know," Cere said. "I don't care, either."

"Maybe she regrets not being there for you earlier," Jun suggested.

"Or maybe she misses you," Palla-Palla added.

"Maybe, maybe, maybe," Cere responded. "Doesn't matter. My life's here. My 'family' is here. And I'm seventeen and I can make my own decisions. And I'm not going back to Sao Paulo - - certainly not with her."

Ves glanced at Jun and the smile on her face was mirrored by the smile on her sister. Palla-Palla was more demonstrative, lunging for Cere and catching the girl around the neck with a bear hug.

"Watch it!" Cere fussed. "You'll damage my coiffure!"

* * *

King Endymion was, as usual, in front of his vast bank of computer screens, surveying the palace, the city and the surrounding area. He always liked to put some time in front of the computer each day, no matter what else needed his attention. Protecting his family and the city he loved, that was King Endymion's obsession. All the monitors showed business as normal in the palace and the city.

"Things seem quiet," Endymion mused. "Maybe you should get on to dinner before Serenity gets mad. She's very indulgent regarding this obsession of yours. You shouldn't press your luck."

Suddenly the picture of the outer door to the computer room came up. Endymion saw Rei Hino standing at the door even as the computer announced her presence. Endymion engaged the door and it opened.

"Am I bothering you, Endymion?" Rei asked, sweeping into the room. As usual, she was in her priest robes.

"Actually I was just about to go to dinner," Endymion replied. "What did you want to see me about?"

Rei scowled. She seemed more cross with herself, though, than with him.

"Have your monitors picked up anything," and Rei hesitated, "unusual?"

"Unusual how?"

"I don't know," Rei confessed in frustration. "Something just - - doesn't seem right."

"Are you having a premonition of danger?"

"Not a premonition," Rei shook her head. "But - - something's here - - in the city - - in our midst. I don't know what, but I can feel - - something."

"You can't be any more specific?"

"No. I was hoping something might be happening somewhere in the city that was unusual, and I could use the visual cues from that to spark some recognition of what I'm feeling. Otherwise it will just remain a vague feeling."

"Maybe it's nothing," Endymion ventured.

"It's never 'nothing'," Rei replied. "I've been at this too long. Something is here, in this city, that doesn't belong. And I'd rather not find out too late that its intentions are malicious."

"Would it be possible that the yurei has come back?"

"No, Sailor Moon sent it to the after life. This isn't the yurei." Rei expelled a breath. "I just can't place what it is!"

"Maybe you're focused too hard on the problem," Endymion said, giving the monitors one last cautious glance. "I know. How about you dine with Serenity and me tonight?"

"How is yelling at your ditz of a wife going to help me focus?" Rei grinned.

"It'll take your mind off of it," Endymion explained as he rose. "If you're not constantly focused on trying to force a recognition, it may come to you."

"Is SHE cooking?" Rei asked.

"Of course not," Endymion smiled. Rei was still hesitant. "We might even be graced by an appearance from Usa - - provided she isn't occupied with trailing Helios all over the palace like a little puppy."

"I wondered what those puddles of drool were in some of the halls," Rei smirked. "All right, Endymion, I accept."

Endymion nodded and they headed for the door. And, just before it closed behind him, Endymion snuck another glanced at the monitors - - just in case.

* * *

In her room, Usa worked diligently at her computer work station. Unnoticed and unacknowledged, since she had unrestricted access, Diana wandered into the room. Observing her friend and charge hard at work, Diana smiled.

"Ah, there's one thing I never have to remind Usagi of," Diana thought. "She's always been very industrious when it comes to finishing her homework."

Leaping up on the bed, the gray cat walked over and peered at the screen.

"That isn't your homework," Diana remarked with surprise.

"I finished that an hour ago," Usa mumbled. Her concentration on the screen was so intense that Diana feared she'd burn a hole through the screen.

"What are you looking at so intently?" Diana asked. "Are those palace surveillance records?"

"Yeah."

"How did you obtain access to those? Only your father and palace security are supposed to have access to those."

"Hacked in," Usa said, still closely studying the images on her computer. Diana could see they were recordings of a conversation Usa and Helios had earlier.

"MY LADY!" gasped the gray cat.

"Diana, don't," Usa scowled, looking at her for the first time. "I'm on the trail of a mystery here that may need Sailor Moon's attention. I don't have time to call Pop and ask for permission." Going back to the screen, Usa suddenly became excited. "Gotcha!" she exclaimed.

"What sort of 'mystery'?" Diana asked. But before Usa could respond, a small window opened in the bottom right corner of her screen. In it was a real time picture of her father.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but dinner's ready."

"I'm kind of in the middle of something, Pop," Usa offered.

"It can wait," Endymion replied - - in THAT tone - - then closed the window. Usa flopped back onto her chair and blew at her pink bangs.

"NOW what did I do?" she grumbled.

"You ARE being ironic, aren't you?" Diana looked at her askance.

In the royal chambers, Endymion came over to the table. Serenity and Rei were already seated. The table was adorned with a generous meal for four. Endymion seated himself as Serenity began serving the food.

"So what was she doing that was so important THIS TIME," Serenity asked.

"Something on her computer," Endymion replied. "Our little girl is becoming quite the computer whiz. Do you know she's managed to bi-pass the security lockout on the door to Helios' quarters?"

"So THAT'S how she did it," Serenity marveled as Rei smirked to herself. "Good girl." Then the queen realized she'd said that out loud. "Um - - I mean - - I'll have a talk with her."

"Well it's not surprising, I suppose, given who her father is," Rei commented. Then she glanced at Serenity. "It's a cinch she didn't get it from you."

"Shut up and eat, Rei, or I'll have you arrested," Serenity glared.

"For what, Bubble-brain?"

"I'm Queen around here. I don't need a reason!" And Serenity stuck her tongue out at the priest.

"OK, I'm here. What did I do?" Usa sighed, entering the chamber.

"Is it too much to ask to have a simple family dinner with ALL of the family present, Princess Brat?" Serenity demanded with a cocked eyebrow.

Usa scowled and slunk into a chair. "Hi, Aunt Rei."

"Hi, Muffin," Rei said, her amusement at Usa's theatrics unconcealed.

"By the way, Usa," Endymion began, handing a plate of food to his daughter, "those security lockouts on the personal quarters doors are there for a reason. I would appreciate it if in the future you respected them, for Helios's personal right to privacy if nothing else."

"Yes, Pop," Usa sighed dramatically. "Boy, it's so obvious you've never been in love."

Serenity and Endymion exchanged amused glances while Rei winked at them both.

* * *

Later that evening, Usa was back in her room. A game was on the computer, but she wasn't wholly concentrating on it.

"Helios requests to see you at your door," announced the environmental computer. Usa was up like a shot and to the door in seconds.

"Hi, Helios," Usa smiled invitingly.

"Good evening, Maiden," Helios smiled back, nodding to her. "Are you otherwise occupied?"

"No, why?"

"It is a beautiful evening, Maiden," Helios explained, "and I wish to stroll the grounds and enjoy that evening. And I can think of no better augmentation to that than to have you by my side, enjoying it with me. May I escort you?"

"Sounds great," beamed Usa.

Outside, the pair strolled leisurely through the ornate garden Queen Serenity had sculpted. The scents from the flowers combined with the soft moonlight and the gentle warmth of May to create a uplifting experience. Her hand holding her partner's, Usa seemed to let herself drift along, blissful and unassuming.

"You are quite beautiful by the moon's light, Maiden," Helios said.

"Well aren't you the smooth talker," Usa grinned.

"It is true, Maiden."

"I never said I didn't believe you."

Suddenly, on a path between azaleas and crocus, Helios whirled Usa to him. Chest pressed to chest, the girl looked up into his pale blue eyes, her lips slightly parted with surprise.

"Maiden," Helios said, a passion burning in his blue eyes, "I have tried - - tried to be true to my word to you father. Tried to sublimate the longing that burns within me for you. But I am weak. I need you."

Usa swallowed.

"Come with me, my love," Helios pleaded. "Let us be away. Let us be married in our eyes if no one else's. Let us run to our own little corner of the universe, where we will exist surrounded by nothing and no one but each other and our love for each other. What say you, Maiden?"

"Oh, it's the dream I have every night," Usa beamed. Then the girl sobered. Pivoting, she gently pulled out of his arms and turned away. "But before I give you an answer, there's one thing I have to know."

"What is that, my love?" Helios asked. Usa turned to him. She looked him directly in the eye.

"Just who are you?" Usa asked. "Really?"

Continued in Chapter 3


	3. First Test

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 3: "First Test"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

"Come with me, my love," Helios pleaded to Usa under the soft light of the moon, amid the fragrant bounty of the Queen's garden. "Let us be away. Let us be married in our eyes if no one else's. Let us run to our own little corner of the universe, where we will exist surrounded by nothing and no one but each other and our love for each other. What say you, Maiden?"

"Oh, it's the dream I have every night," Usa beamed. Then the girl sobered. Pivoting, she gently pulled out of his arms and turned away. "But before I give you an answer, there's one thing I have to know."

"What is that, my love?" Helios asked. Usa turned to him. She looked him directly in the eye.

"Just who are you?" Usa asked. "Really?"

The Princess detected surprise in the eyes of this man, but she noted that he couldn't quite contain a playful smirk, as if she'd just caught him in a prank. That only increased her irritation.

"You do not believe I am Helios, Lord of the Dreaming?" he asked innocently.

"No," Usa replied flatly.

"And how came you to this decision?"

"Very recently, my perception of Helios has increased," Usa explained with an air of superiority designed to undercut the mocking confidence she sensed in this impostor. "We're connected, and when I concentrate on that connection I can sense it. It's almost like the red string that binds two people together who are destined to be in love." Usa's mouth hardened. "And WE'RE not connected - - whoever you are."

"How long have you had this - - opinion?" the creature who looked and sounded like Helios asked.

"Since you came to my door. I wanted to know what you were after. Now who are you?"

"Who am I?" the person disguised as Helios asked. "Since you're quite certain I'm not Helios, I must be someone else."

Suddenly the being's appearance shifted before Usa's eyes into that of Hotaru.

"Perhaps I'm your best friend," she said in Hotaru's voice.

Then she shifted again, becoming the mirror image of Usa herself.

"Or perhaps I'm you," she said, this time in a perfect reflection of Usa's melodic voice.

Once more the entity changed. Usa's chest seized up, for this time she became the image of Black Lady.

"Or perhaps I'm your worst nightmare," she said, Usa's melodic voice taking on a timber of taunting, savage evil.

"Or maybe you're just a shape-shifter trying to run some con on me," Usa snapped.

"Can you be sure?" Black Lady asked, every syllable a menacing challenge.

"I checked the surveillance records from this afternoon," Usa said stonily. "When I turned away, you changed into something very small and flew under the table."

"Oh I am impressed, Princess," Black Lady replied. Though her tone was one of admiration, still there was a look to her expression that made Usa think she was still being mocked. "You seem to have completely found me out. Indeed you have proven your worth with considerable ease so far. Out of curiosity, would you have run away with him had it actually been the Guardian of Dreams speaking to you and not me?"

"Why?" Usa demanded.

"Just so," Black Lady acquiesced nonchalantly. "Nothing useful in this life is ever earned easily. I guess I'll just have to find my answers on my own."

Black Lady turned to walk away. Usa lunged to restrain her. And suddenly there was nothing there to restrain. Instantly Usa looked down, to see if the shape-shifter had pulled the same trick as earlier. But there was nothing on the ground that she could see. Usa quickly looked up and scanned all around her.

But there was nothing in the garden other than flowers and trees and her questions.

Minutes later, at the door to the quarters Helios had been assigned, Usa quickly keyed in the bi-pass code she'd hacked into the security system. Preoccupied, the teen started forward - - then stopped suddenly when the door failed to open. Confused, Usa checked the security pad again.

"Pop froze me out!" she thought furiously. "Just great! Thanks a lot, Pop!"

Then the door opened. Helios stood in the doorway.

"Maiden," he sighed patiently, "if you wish to speak with me, you merely have to instruct the computer to announce your presence."

Usa's eyes glazed over for a second, as if she were in intense concentration. Momentarily Helios became concerned.

"OK, it's you," Usa nodded and invited herself in. Helios followed her curiously with his gaze as she walked over and sat down on a chair. "Helios, the weirdest thing just happened to me. You remember earlier when I spent time with something I thought was you? Well, it was back. It tried to run some con on me down in the garden."

"Indeed, Maiden," Helios replied thoughtfully. He sat in a chair across a small table from her. "Tell me exactly what happened."

After hearing her recap of the events, Helios leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. Usa leaned forward. The Dream Guardian didn't reply for several moments.

"Well?" Usa asked impatiently.

"I am not certain, Maiden, how to answer this quandary," he related. "But I am quite concerned. There is a distinct possibility of danger to you and possibly to others. However I cannot say with certainty to what, if any degree." He rose and gestured for her to stand. "I shall search that which is my province to search and see if I may come up with more details for you. And I must charge you, my love, that caution from this point forth will be your greatest ally. Until we know more, trust in no one and nothing unless you are certain they are who they claim to be."

He took her hands and gazed deeply into her eyes.

"And do not forget that you need only summon me with your mind," he reiterated, "and I will be at your side. Do not, for any reason, feel you must face this alone."

"I won't," she said, mesmerized by his gaze. Feeling herself flushing slightly, Usa added, "and thank you."

As she was hoping he would, Helios bent in and kissed her. Moments later, she was outside in the corridor again. Usa took a few moments to let her heart stop pounding. Then she noticed Luna at the end of the hall, one of the black cat's withering glares focused on her.

"Nothing happened!" Usa growled and walked off.

"Yes, I'm certain the blush in your cheeks came from the room temperature being too high," Luna thought cynically. "Yet another example of your mother's lax parental skills."

* * *

It was morning and Makoto Kino was headed to Classroom One. She had teaching duties again today and she wanted to get to class early in order to prepare. Ami had once again reassured her that she would be fine so long as she followed the programmed lesson plan. But, even after all these years, Makoto couldn't get over the fear that she wasn't smart enough to be the kind of teacher the Princess and her senshi needed. So she headed for class early. She wanted to be ready, so there was less chance of something unexpected happening that might force her to "wing it" - - and completely embarrass herself.

Passing a connecting corridor, though, she found Ves-Ves leaning up against a wall, deep in thought. A troubled Ves was never a good thing, in her experience, so the woman wandered over. Ves didn't notice her until she was two feet away.

"Kino-Sensei," Ves gasped, caught by surprise.

"Good morning, Ves," Makoto greeted her. "This is new. You're usually in the cafeteria with the others."

"It got too depressing," Ves scowled. "Jun's still down on herself because of that ghost thing. Now Cere is all twisted up in knots over this aunt of hers visiting. And Usa's having breakfast with her guy - - again - - and I can only listen to Palla-Palla recite the dialog from this morning's 'Yumi-Chan's Toyshop' just so long, you know?"

"Uh huh," Makoto nodded. She took a step towards the classroom and Ves fell in with her. "So what's got you bugged?"

Ves looked up at her in shock, unaware that she had been so transparent. Makoto gave her a sympathetic smile and the girl eased.

"This aunt of Cere's," Ves answered. "She's talking about taking Cere back to Brasilia."

"Does Cere want to go?"

"No! She doesn't even like the woman! This woman let Cere go to an orphanage rather than take her in. And now seven years later all of a sudden she wants to hook up! What the Hell, Sensei?"

"And you're afraid this aunt's not being honest about her intentions?" Makoto asked.

"Yeah! Am I being street paranoid, Sensei?"

"Doesn't seem like it. This woman's change of heart concerning Cere is a little sudden. I would be curious, too." She glanced at Ves. "Is that the only reason you're bugged?"

"What else?" Ves asked defensively. Makoto raised her eyebrow. "Man, how do you see right through me? Yeah, I'm worried that - - well . . ."

"That she'll go? And you'll lose part of your family?"

"Crazy, isn't it? Cere and I fight like a couple of wet ocelots. We do a million things that the other one can't stand." Ves set her jaw for a moment and Makoto realized she was trying to keep from crying. "But - - I don't want to see her go. We've been family for four years now. She and the others are all I got." Ves wiped her nose with her hand. "Don't tell her I said that, huh?"

"Oh, of course not," Makoto smirked.

"I don't know why I even said that out loud. It's like - - Kino-Sensei, sometimes I think you're the only one in this palace who gets it. Who understands. The only adult, I mean. I mean, everybody's nice and they all mean well, but you're the only one who seems to understand."

"Thanks, Ves. I try," Makoto replied.

"So what do I do?" Ves asked and there was fear in the girl's eyes. Makoto draped her arm over the girl's shoulders.

"Trust in Cere. If she doesn't want to go, you back her with everything you've got. Make sure she knows that she's not making this decision alone. She can stand her ground better if she knows you and the others are behind her. And if she decides she wants to go, you have to let her go."

Ves looked up at her with shock and anxiety.

"Ves, people will pass in and out of your life for the rest of your days," Makoto told her. "That's a part of life that you can't change no matter how hard you fight it. You can spare yourself and other people a lot of pain by accepting that."

Ves looked down. It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but Makoto saying it carried some weight with the teen.

"Meanwhile, maybe I can find someone around this place who can do a little checking into this aunt and maybe find out why she suddenly wants to reunite with Cere."

"Kino-Sensei, that would be awesome!" Ves exclaimed.

"Let me make a couple of calls," Makoto told her. "Meanwhile you get to class - - and no loitering." Ves gave her an upbeat nod and buzzed off.

* * *

In the royal chambers, Usa and Helios were dining with King Endymion. It not being ten yet, the Queen was still asleep. Endymion glanced up from his meal for the fourth time to see his daughter staring enraptured at Helios rather than eating. His gaze went from her to Helios, something that made the Dream Guardian just a little nervous. However, Endymion said nothing.

"Maiden," Helios said at last. "If you do not finish your meal, we will be here all day."

"It's OK with me," Usa grinned.

"Sadly, Maiden, I have duties that must be attended to. And you have responsibilities as well."

Usa scowled. "It's a good thing you're cute," and she reluctantly turned to her meal.

"Usa, if all you're going to do is sit around and moon over our guest," Endymion began, "I am seriously going to reconsider this arrangement."

"Pop!" Usa howled.

"It's for your own good. You don't seem to be able to concentrate on anything but Helios anymore. You're breaking palace rules, probably neglecting your studies . . ."

"My homework's done! You want to look at it? Do you want to see my grades?"

"Perhaps I should excuse myself," Helios said awkwardly. He rose from the table and bowed to Endymion, then quickly exited.

"Good one, Pop!" fumed Usa.

"All right, perhaps I overestimated the distraction he had on you regarding your school work. But there is the matter of breaking palace rules."

"I only went into his quarters once!"

"Only because I changed the pass code and locked you out."

"So you're going to punish Helios for something I did? Pop, that is so not fair!"

"Usa," Endymion sighed, "I put those restrictions on you because you are only seventeen, and you are not married to Helios. You're not even betrothed to him. And because of that, you will have to observe certain conventions of propriety. They are essential to every person in civilized society to observe, but particularly for someone who will one day have to be an example for the people she will be expected to govern and lead. Your position as Princess of Crystal Tokyo does not give you license to do whatever you want."

"You can say that again," grumbled the teen.

"And I don't think it makes Helios very comfortable to have you fawning over . . ." Endymion began. When he stopped speaking, Usa looked over at him.

She found her father staring in shock. His hand went to his chest and Usa instantly noticed how much it shook. She was up out of her chair even as Endymion was struggling to get out of his. As she reached for him, the strength in Endymion's arm gave out and he slipped off the chair arm, falling to the floor.

"Pop?" Usa gasped, kneeling down next to him. The man struggled to speak, but no sound came out. He clutched his chest as if some unseen hand gripped his chest. "POP!" she screeched again. "Computer, signal for a medical team to the Royal Chambers! Hurry!"

Within minutes, Endymion was in the palace infirmary. Usa watched from the other side of the room as Ami and two of her nurses examined the King.

"There it is, Dr. Mizuno!" one of the nurses exclaimed, pointing at a virtual readout suspended over the patient.

"Yes, you're right," Ami judged. "Inject 10 cc's of adrenaline and 20 cc's of Carboxyneutalin." The patient bed's robotic appendages complied immediately.

"I've never seen a compound like that before," remarked the other nurse.

"Nor have I," Ami replied, studying the holographic readouts. "This anti-toxin isn't affecting the compound."

"Aunt Ami?" Usa inquired, trembling. "What's wrong?"

"Your father has some unknown toxin in his blood," Ami explained while she typed an equation into the computer. "It's causing massive replication of his white count and literally choking his blood stream."

"Cardiac arrhythmia!" one of the nurses blurted out.

"Engage external pulse generation!" Ami commanded. Usa watched the medical professionals work and felt her fear rising in her throat.

"They can't save him," Usa heard a voice whisper. She turned and found a woman standing next to her. The woman had red skin, with no hair on her head and no eyebrows. Her eyes were a lighter crimson with no pupils at all. Her ears were pointed and she wore nothing. The woman had an animal-like beauty to her and a smugness to her expression.

"Who are you?" Usa demanded softly.

"Don't you remember me, Princess?" the being asked. "Last night in the garden?"

"You! What do you know about this?"

"That's hardly important at the moment," the being commented confidently. "What's important is that they can't save your father's life. That toxin is beyond them."

Usa looked away from the strange woman to her father, laying on the medical bed. He was pale and shaking, in obvious pain. Usa looked like she wanted to fall to her knees and cry. Then she became resolute. Her hand went up, fingers splayed.

"You can't save him, either," the woman told her. "You don't have the power - - yet. Some day you will. But I don't imagine he can wait that long."

Usa turned on the woman angrily. Ami noticed this and glanced at them, but couldn't leave Endymion.

"Who can save him?" Usa demanded angrily. "You?"

"Your mother has the power," the woman replied.

Instantly Usa sprinted for the door. She would get Serenity and everything would be all right. Of course her mother could save him. Her mother could do anything - - except maybe listen to her.

"Of course, there is one thing you should know," the strange woman added, stopping Usa in her tracks. "The energy required to save your father's life will probably kill your mother."

Usa whirled on her in shock and horror. The enigmatic woman only smiled.

"So what will it be, Princess?" she asked. "Will you spare your mother, or save your father?"

Continued in Chapter 4


	4. Questions As Old As Time

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 4: "Questions As Old As Time"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

A light flashed on Makoto's lectern, indicating that it was time for class to begin. She looked over the room and confirmed what she already knew: everyone was here except Usa.

"This is becoming a bad habit," Makoto commented to no one in particular, though all of her students heard her.

"Perhaps she's sick," Hotaru offered, almost hopefully. "She wasn't at breakfast this morning."

"Does 'lovesick' qualify as sick?" Ves asked, drawing a snicker from Cere.

"All right," Makoto warned playfully. Even Jun was trying to smother a smile. That was a good sign. "Computer, location of Princess Usagi please."

"Princess Usagi is currently in the level five infirmary," the computer replied. Several surprised glances passed between the students.

"Maybe she is sick," Makoto mused.

"Miss Makoto Ma'am!" Palla-Palla said suddenly, sticking her hand up. "Can Palla-Palla make the Princess a get-well card?"

"During arts and crafts, hon'," Makoto replied. "Well, since Usa probably isn't going to be here, we may as well get started. Page your on-line study software to four twenty-two point one. First subject is twenty-sixth century world history. Palla-Palla, you go to auxiliary four twenty-two point one and work on your color and shape association."

Makoto noticed Ves's head flop back against the back of Palla-Palla's desk and Cere grimace noticeably. History wasn't the favorite subject of either girl, but they had to know it, so they were going to learn it whether they wanted to or not. At least the normalcy was helping Jun get back into a sense of routine. That was a good thing. The sooner she was back to her old ways, the better off she'd be.

"OK, we left off with the Pacific Rim Peace Accords that Serenity and Endymion brokered in 2517," Makoto began, referring to her computerized notes. As she recalled, history hadn't been one of her favorite subjects, either.

* * *

"So what will it be, Princess?" the red-hued woman creature asked. "Will you spare your mother, or save your father?"

Usa glared at the figure in red and if it were physically possible to strike a person down with just a look - - then she turned to Ami.

"Aunt Ami?" Usa asked.

"I haven't given up," Ami exclaimed as she and her nurses labored over Endymion. "But to be completely honest, he's running out of time. Your mother should be here, if only to say 'good-bye' if it becomes necessary."

That was all Usa needed to hear. The teen rocketed out of the infirmary and streaked down the hall, her twin pink tails of hair acting like a comet's tail. Already word was beginning to get around the palace. Workers hugged the wall in order to get out of Usa's way, their wishes, hopes and condolences lost on her. The teen flew down the steps to the lower level, where Luna met her.

"My Lady, what is it?" the cat cried, trailing Usa and running as best she could to keep up. "They say the King is stricken with some ailment!"

Usa didn't bother to respond. She crashed through the barely open door into the Royal Chambers and streaked into her parents' sleeping chamber. Serenity, naturally, was still sound asleep, drooling on the pillow with askew limbs sticking out from under the sheets.

"Mom, wake up!" Usa cried, shaking the Queen violently. "Mom!"

"Uh, just five more minutes, Mom," Serenity mumbled, clinging to the pillow.

Luna ground her teeth, then launched herself into the air. Claws bared, the cat landed on Serenity's hip and dug in deep.

"SERENITY, GET UP!" the cat bellowed.

"OW!" the Queen roared, nearly jumping out of bed. "LUNA!"

"Mom!" Usa shouted, grasping her mother by the shoulders. "Pop's in the infirmary! You have to come!"

Serenity went pale for a moment. Instantly she was out of bed, mentally transforming her nightgown into her queen's robes. Grasping Usa by the hand, Serenity levitated them both into the air and passed them through the floor, their destination the infirmary. Luna watched them both disappear through the ceiling, then turned and headed for the infirmary on foot.

"She's going to try to save him," Usa thought as she and her mother passed through levels of the palace like a pair of ghosts. "I know she will, and she won't care if it means her life. There's no way I can stop her - - and if I do somehow manage it, Pop dies!" The teen stared ahead, her field of vision now Endymion's infirmary room as they passed into that level. "There's got to be another way! There's got to be! But what?"

Once they were both solidly on the floor, Serenity let go of her daughter's hand and glided over to Endymion's side. Tears already streaming down her face, the Queen looked to Ami.

"Ami?" she whimpered.

"I," and everyone could see Ami was teetering on the brink as well, "I've done - - everything I can for him. The toxin won't respond to anything I try. He's got - - minutes, at best."

Serenity's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Then a familiar resolution came over her. Ami recognized it instantly.

"Serenity, no!" Ami commanded. "You can't try to heal him! It's too much for you! He's too far gone!"

"I have to try, Ami," Serenity sobbed. "I have to! I'd rather be dead than live without him!" She reached for Endymion's hand, her own hand taking on a silver aura.

"Mom!" Usa said sharply. Serenity and Ami both turned to her. They saw her hand up, fingers splayed. "We'll try."

"Usa, honey!" Serenity responded, but the girl cut her off.

"Don't argue, Mom. I'm going to help you, whether you want me to or not. And maybe together we can get him through it."

Not waiting for a response, Usa shouted, "Moon Cosmic Power Make Up!" In a heart beat, Helios materialized beside her, grasping her outstretched hand in his. He glanced, for just a moment, at the strange red woman and Ami detected a glint of recognition in the Dream Guardian's eyes. Then Helios transformed into a cocoon of energy that enveloped Usa. When it dissipated, Sailor Moon stood. Instantly she ran over and snatched up her mother's free hand.

"Let's do this, Mom," Sailor Moon said. Serenity smiled.

"Let's do this," the Queen responded.

Pink and silver auras mixed together and flooded into Endymion. The fallen monarch stiffened and Ami looked at his vital sign monitors. For a few moments Ami was concerned that his already accelerated pulse and respiration wouldn't be able to handle the strain. But almost immediately the vitals began to level off. Given the history of these two, Ami shouldn't have been surprised.

"Toxicity levels dropping, Doctor," reported the nurse monitoring it. "The toxin is being converted into proteins. White count dropping. Circulatory constriction easing."

Ami turned to Serenity and Sailor Moon. She studied their faces. Each had her eyes closed and each displayed a tension brought on by the exertion of producing and funneling healing energy into Endymion. The doctor searched for signs of trouble, but the stress level they both were enduring wasn't what Ami expected it to be. By sharing the load, they were accomplishing what Serenity could do by herself, but without facing the risk to her system that producing that much energy would encumber.

And her own agitation began to ease.

"Blood pressure is coming within safe levels," Ami stated. "Pulse is stronger. What's the white count now?"

"Eighteen thousand, Doctor," a nurse replied.

"Soluble lipid analysis," Ami demanded.

"It just dipped to ninety-nine," the other nurse answered.

Serenity felt Endymion squeeze her hand. Sailor Moon felt her mother shiver with surprise and elation. Serenity looked down and saw the eyes of her husband inch open.

"I think you can stop now, Serenity," Ami smiled, touching her Queen's shoulder. "And you, too, Sailor Moon."

"OH, ENDYMION!" Serenity sobbed. She dived for her still prone husband, engulfed him and began weeping on his chest. Weakly he draped one arm over her. Looking over to his daughter, he responded with a tired smile and a limp thumbs up. Sailor Moon wiped a tear from her eye with her thumb.

Then she remembered the stranger. Turning angrily, she found the woman standing by the wall.

"Well done, Princess," the strange red woman smiled confidently. "You chose wisely."

And then she faded from view.

* * *

"Who can give me the five forms of the verb 'to travel' in English?" Makoto asked her class.

Hotaru raised her hand.

"Who else besides Hotaru?" Makoto asked wryly. "It's not fair for you to answer every question, Hotaru."

Hotaru lowered her hand - - and her gaze, blushing slightly.

"Jun?" Makoto singled out the green-tressed student.

"Um," Jun shook herself, for she hadn't really been listening - - which was why Makoto picked her, "[I travel, you travel, he/she/it travels, we travel, they travel]."

"Good," Makoto nodded. "You just talked your way out of detention for not paying attention in class."

"Sorry, Sensei," Jun grimaced. Makoto felt bad about her little stab at humor.

"OK, Ves, conjugate the verb . . ." Makoto began, then was distracted by a message on her lectern computer.

"Saved by the bell," mumbled Ves.

"More like prolonged the execution," mumbled Cere.

"Cere," Makoto announced. "Could you meet with Hino-Sensei in the shrine? You have a visitor waiting for you there."

"Uh oh," Cere sighed. The others looked at her sympathetically, for they all knew who it was. With the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner, Cere pried herself out of her seat, gathered her work station and headed for the door.

To everyone's surprise, Ves did the same.

"And where are you going?" Makoto asked.

"It's that Aunt I told you about, Kino-Sensei," Ves explained. "I was going to go with her. You know, have her back. Like you said."

"Ves, I told you to support her, not be her bodyguard," Makoto replied.

"Sensei!" Ves responded urgently, trying to communicate how important this was to her without actually saying how important this was to her.

"Ves, this is one of those times in your life where you have to realize that a show of force isn't the way to go. Cere is capable of dealing with this without you there trying to intimidate this aunt."

"But . . .!"

"Ves, stay here," Cere said. "I can handle Aunt Pilar. But thanks."

Cere disappeared behind the door. Beaten and realizing it, Ves flung herself back into her chair, scowling and folding her arms over her chest.

"Cere-Cere will be just fine, Ves-Ves," Ves heard Palla-Palla say. "She'll come back to us and everything will be happy and bright."

"Sure, Stupid," Ves replied sarcastically. "Just like in one of your holo-book fairy tales."

"What was that?" Makoto asked.

Ves suddenly realized that everyone was looking at her curiously. Then it dawned on her that Palla-Palla must have spoken telepathically. She turned and looked behind her. Palla-Palla was in her seat. She gestured sternly with her finger to her lips for quiet. Disgusted, Ves turned back to face the front of the class, hunched down in her seat, arms once more folded in front of her.

Cere reached the shrine entrance, then paused. She took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to run and hide. Aunt Pilar had never been one of her favorite people in the world - - and since the age of ten the woman had been in Cere's top five least favorite.

"Come on, get it over with," Cere murmured, exhaling loudly. She gathered herself up and entered the shrine.

"Welcome, Cere," Rei said, meeting the girl as she entered. It was almost like she sensed the girl out in the hall. Knowing Hino-Sensei, she probably had. "I see you're a little anxious about this meeting. Don't worry. I'll be here the entire time if you need any advice or support either in my role as a priest or as a representative of the government of Crystal Tokyo."

While meant to reassure her, Rei's words only made Cere more wary. To say what Rei had said meant that Rei had read something in her Aunt Pilar that she felt Cere wouldn't like. As Rei escorted her into a small room in the shrine, Cere began to wish she'd let Ves follow her down.

"Chica!" Pilar squealed, jumping up out of her chair. She ran over, arms extended and folded them around Cere. "My goodness, but how you've grown!"

For her part, Cere endured the hug rigidly, fearing that the woman would somehow suck the vitality out of her. Pilar was a few inches shorter than Cere was. Her hair was pinned back and Cere noticed that the gray had been touched up. Pilar was still thin and still dressed in short, flashy skirts and gaudy jewelry that probably made her quite eye-catching - - twenty-five years ago. Up close, Cere could see Pilar's skin was becoming leathery and she noticed the concealing makeup under and around her eyes. She also noticed the artificial nature of the hug.

"And you've grown to be quite the beautiful young woman, Chica!" Pilar continued, holding Cere at arm's length and surveying the girl. "So stylish and sophisticated for your age. The boys must give you absolutely no peace whatsoever. Yes, there's a lot of your mother in you, particularly with that figure."

"If you'd care to sit down," Rei injected, sensing Cere's growing unease, "we can get to the nature of your visit."

"Why, thank you, ma'am," Pilar nodded, resuming her seat while Rei and Cere took the remaining chairs. Pilar noted this. "Could you excuse us, please? Cerese and I would like to discuss family business."

"It's OK, Aunt Pilar," Cere spoke up. "Hino-Sensei is one of my mentors here. I'd like her to stay."

"Well, I just thought she might want to get back to running this quaint little," and Pilar looked around curiously, "place."

"Don't be insulting!" Cere bristled. "This is a place of worship! Just because it isn't an Elvan church doesn't mean it's inferior!"

"I didn't mean any offense," Pilar offered Rei. Rei only cocked an eyebrow. "Very well. I just wanted to bring you some good news, Chica. I'm taking you back to Brasilia."

Cere only stared. It was just what she feared.

"You mentioned that on your vid-call," Cere replied. "Why now?"

"I don't understand?" Pilar offered.

"You had a chance to take me in seven years ago," Cere scowled. "Instead I ended up in Quatro Pai."

"I'm sorry about that, Cerese," Pilar said. "I didn't want to do it. I just - - well, I didn't have any way to-to care for you and raise you. I wasn't married and my income wasn't steady. It wasn't a proper place to bring up a ten year old girl."

Cere just stared.

"I know you probably have some bitter feelings about those years," Pilar continued. "I don't really blame you. But as bad as it must have been, Quatro Pai was probably a better place for you at the time than with me - - even if it was Catholic. It was - - structured and - - well, you certainly received a good education."

"Yeah, it taught me a lot of things," Cere replied. "So what changed?"

"Well," Pilar began, "you're older. I'm older. And I - - find myself missing family. It's become more important than it probably was a few years ago. And I'm sure you miss Sao Paulo. This is a very pretty country, but it's not your home. It's not where your roots are. You belong in Brasilia and I've come to take you back where you belong."

"Well I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing, Aunt Pilar," Cere stated, rising out of the chair. "But I'm not going back to Brasilia."

"Cerese!" Pilar gasped.

"My home is here now," Cere continued. "My life is here. My friends are here. And my family is here - - my new family. The one that didn't turn its back on me. And I'm staying here."

"Cerese, you're upset. Don't," Pilar began, but Cere cut her off.

"I'm not going back to Brasilia, Aunt Pilar," Cere stated adamantly, "and you can't make me!"

Pilar reached into her handbag and pulled out a memory crystal.

"Yes I can, Cerese," she replied, holding the crystal up.

Continued in Chapter 5


	5. Identities

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 5: "Identities"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

Rei Hino watched intently as the woman named Pilar Escalona drew a memory crystal out of her bag and held it up for Cere-Cere to see. She was focused on what she could draw out of the woman with her second sight. Violet eyes burned twin holes in the woman, who had her concentration on Cere. Rei relaxed, letting her entire being flow to her eyes, opening her mind to any and all perceptions. After a thousand years of doing it, the practice was second nature to her. And in that instant, she saw what was on the crystal just by reading it on Pilar Escalona.

Cere wasn't going to like this.

"What's that?" Cere demanded crossly.

"A judgment from the regional court in Sao Paulo," Pilar explained. "As your closest living relative, it grants me custody of you until you're eighteen."

"What?" Cere gasped softly, her eyes popping.

"I applied for custody, Cerese," Pilar continued. "I thought it was best. I thought you needed someone - - someone who could look out for you, who could bring you home and give you the life you deserve." She looked down. "I thought it was about time I started living up to my responsibilities."

"You can't force me to go back to Brasilia!" Cere howled.

"I don't want to force you, Cerese," Pilar countered. "I was hoping you'd come willingly. I was hoping that you could see this as an opportunity to regain your heritage and all the things that you lost before that goes with your heritage."

"Well I'm not interested in any of that," Cere argued. "I like it here. Crystal Tokyo is a wonderful place. I've been back to Sao Paulo and it doesn't compare. And I live in a palace! Are we going to live in a palace in Sao Paulo? Besides, I have obligations that I won't go back on, to the Princess and to my new family!"

"I didn't want to get into this," Pilar frowned, "but I can't help but wonder how good an influence this 'new family' of yours is." Cere's eyes flashed anger, but Pilar continued undeterred. "It wasn't until you fell in with them that you got the idea to run away from the orphanage. And then you show up," and Pilar goggled for a moment, incredulous of what she was saying, "ten centuries in the past? And you're trying to-to conquer the world?"

Cere's gaze shifted away. Was her Dead Moon Circus past going to haunt her forever, just as it was haunting the others - - particularly Jun?

"Lack of supervision and naivete are to blame for that more than anything," Rei spoke up. "Cere has benefited greatly from the environment of Crystal Tokyo and the influence the Royal Family provide."

"Perhaps," sniffed Pilar. "But I can't help but wonder if being a bodyguard for your Princess is a career suited for someone like Cerese - - particularly at her age. As her legal guardian, it's my right to make such judgments. It's certainly my duty - - and certainly more than it is your Royal Family."

Cere was about to argue further, but Rei held up her hand and cut the teen off.

"This is a matter that probably should be taken up by someone with a background in international law," Rei told Pilar. "If you could supply us with a copy of that crystal with the judgment on it, I'll see to it that this situation is resolved in a timely manner."

"What's to resolve?" Pilar asked stiffly. "I'm her legal guardian. The Brasilian courts have said as much."

"And if we were in Brasilia," Rei replied with velvety steel, "there wouldn't be a dispute. But we're in Japan and King Endymion, as recognized ruler of Japan, has granted Cere full citizenship. And until jurisdiction can be settled, Cere will be staying here." Rei smiled mirthlessly. "You are, of course, welcome to stay here in the palace until that question is settled. We have quite sumptuous guest accommodations."

"You're," sputtered Pilar, "interfering with my custody?"

"We're merely waiting to establish jurisdictional boundaries," Rei corrected her. But a flare in Rei's eyes told Pilar not to push it.

"Well," Pilar responded, clearly not happy, "I suppose I don't have a choice. This matter will be settled quickly, won't it? I do have business I have to attend to back in Brasilia."

"We'll expedite it as soon as possible," Rei assured her. Rising, she gestured for Pilar to follow. Cere watched Rei escort her aunt out of the room, probably to turn her over to a palace attendant. The priest returned several minutes later.

"Thanks for standing up for me, Sensei," Cere told Rei when she returned. "Can she really force me to go back to Brasilia?"

"I'm hardly an expert in international law, Cere," Rei explained. "That's something I'm going to have to leave to Endymion and his advisers. Her custody ruling is legitimate. I was able to read that much from her."

"What's it all about, Sensei? I know Aunt Pilar. All she's ever cared about is herself."

"I don't know, Cere. I wasn't able to see why it's so important for you to come back to Brasilia with her, other than it's important." Rei turned and looked at where Pilar had last been seen. "But one thing I could read was that all that stuff about her wanting to give you a loving, structured life is more than just a story. You are important to her; however, there's something else here that's just as important as blood loyalty."

* * *

While Sailor Moon stood over them both and watched, Serenity sat on the edge of the medical bunk Endymion lay on and cried into his chest. Thought she felt her mother was being just a little too demonstrative, they had come very close to losing Endymion and she did understand how her mother felt. If it would have accomplished anything, Sailor Moon would have shed a few tears herself. But someone had to stay calm.

"So how are you feeling, Pop?" Sailor Moon leaned in and asked, grasping his hand. She felt him grip it and was chilled by how weak his grasp was.

"Like I dodged another bullet," Endymion replied softly. That got Serenity sobbing anew. "I didn't see what you did. I was kind of occupied. But I felt your energy, mixed in with your mother's. I'm back from the abyss thanks in no small part to you."

"Yes!" Serenity cried, jumping up and snatching Sailor Moon up in a gigantic bear hug. It was an awkward hug, since Serenity only came up to her daughter's chest these days, but that didn't deter the Queen at all. "You were wonderful, Usa! Wonderful! Not only for boosting my power enough to save Endymion, but for thinking of it in the first place! Thank you, thank you!"

"It's OK, Mom," Sailor Moon said, melting in the glow of her parents' love. "After all, I love him, too."

"Ami, how soon can he come home?" Serenity asked, finally releasing the hug - - though she still kept hold of Sailor Moon's hand.

"Not anytime soon," Ami cautioned her. "He still has to build his strength back up."

"Can't he do that in his own bed?" protested the Queen.

"No," Ami replied. "I don't doubt he'll receive very tender loving care at your hands, Serenity. However, you lack the necessary medical knowledge he'll need for the next few days. We'll take very good care of him."

"Can I visit as often as I like?"

"I doubt saying 'no' would stop you," Ami chuckled. "We'll make some accommodations for you." Serenity beamed hopefully. As she did, the Sailor Moon transformation on her daughter faded. Suddenly Helios was standing next to her. He moved to Endymion's bedside and grasped the king's hand.

"My heart sings that you have triumphed over this adversity, Your Majesty," Helios said gravely.

"Due in no small part to your help as well," Endymion acknowledged.

"I just wish I knew who that woman was," Usa fumed. "And where I can find her."

"I cannot aid you in your second quest, Maiden," Helios began, turning to the gathering in the room. "But as far as your first desire, that I may assist you with."

* * *

When class broke for lunch, the principals quickly split up. Hotaru, who had been fretting about Usa all morning, made a bee-line to the infirmary. Ves, Jun and Palla-Palla headed for the shrine. Arriving there, they were informed by Rei that Cere had headed for their quarters. At their quarters, the Asteroids found Cere sitting at a desk, silently brooding. Immediately Palla-Palla walked up and gave her a hug.

"Guess you heard, huh?" Cere commented, patting Palla-Palla on the shoulder.

"We haven't heard anything," Jun replied. "So what happened?"

"Just like last night. Aunt Pilar wants me to go back to Brasilia with her."

"And you told her to get lost, right?" Ves inquired.

"It's not that simple," Cere told them. "Aunt Pilar got the courts in Brasilia to declare her my legal guardian until I'm eighteen. Hino-Sensei and the palace lawyers are looking into it, but she might have the power to make me go."

"But that's not fair!" Palla-Palla whined.

"Yeah," Cere sighed with a scowl.

"So we'll hide you out for a year," Ves shrugged. "It'll be a cinch."

"Ves, I am not going to live in a maintenance tube for the next year!" Cere spat.

"Not with an attitude like that," Ves grumbled.

"Ves," Jun sighed. "Cere, don't do anything rash until we hear back from the King and Queen. Think about it: We're the guardians for the Princess. That means it's important for us to be here. They've got incentive to keep you here - - probably more incentive than your Aunt Pilar has to take you back. I think they can find a way to keep you here."

"They better," Cere said. "Otherwise, Usa is only going to have four guardians instead of five."

"Three," Jun interjected. Everyone looked at her curiously.

"Meaning?" Cere asked.

Jun looked down and exhaled. "I'm," she began tortuously, "still thinking about quitting as Sailor Juno."

* * *

Meanwhile, Hotaru had been directed by Ami to the Royal Quarters. There she found Usa and Helios, with Usa pacing the room in poorly contained frustration.

"Hi, Hotaru," Usa greeted her, clearly relieved that her best friend was here to share her troubles with.

"Mizuno-Sensei told me everything that happened," Hotaru advised her. "Who is this woman? What does she want with you?"

"Helios?" Usa said, turning to the seated Dream Guardian. Helios brushed back his long blue-white hair.

"Her name is Desdaemona," Helios explained soberly. "She is known to me only through my station as Guardian of Pleasant Dreams. She is," and Helios paused for a moment, "an elemental spirit of the universe. It is an inadequate description, but the most accurate one I can come up with. Desdaemona seeks out beings in the universe with great power and standing and tests them."

"Tests them? Why?" Hotaru asked.

"No one can say," Helios answered. "Desdaemona does not explain herself willingly and I know of no being capable of compelling her to answer."

"Yeah, she poisoned Pop just to see how I would react," Usa added. Hotaru noticed her friend was clearly upset.

"That's awful," gasped Hotaru. "How can she justify doing something like that?"

"Desdaemona does not concern herself with the moral questions of her own actions," Helios explained. "To her, the only thing that matters is the test she gives and the answers she obtains. She gives no more thought to human life than you would the life of a bacterium in your biology studies."

"Tell her the best part," Usa said.

Helios sighed. "Desdaemona does not come unto an entity unless she senses, with their great power," and Helios hesitated again. Hotaru saw a welling irritation in the normally placid being. "The potential," he continued, "for great destructiveness exists."

Hotaru turned to Usa in shock. Her friend turned away, shying from her gaze.

"Yeah, this woman thinks I'm so unreliable that I might just destroy everything," Usa answered bitterly.

"Well, she's wrong," Hotaru maintained. "Usa, I trust you with my life. You've done so much good already. You've saved this city and you've saved me."

"Story of my life, Hotaru," Usa replied. "I've always been on probation. I'm beginning to wonder if I always will be."

Hotaru turned to Helios. "Did her actions prove to this Desdaemona that she's wrong to think of Usa that way? Or is she coming back?"

"I cannot say," Helios told her. "I only know that, until Desdaemona is satisfied, she will return again and again. And she will leave only when she is satisfied - - or until the subject of her inquiry perishes in one of her tests."

It was clear this possibility had already been communicated to the Princess. She stood off to the side, lost in her own simmering ire and anxiety, anxiety that Desdaemona might actually be right. Hotaru went over and took Usa's hand. The Princess turned to her, surprised by the gesture.

"You'll prove her wrong, Usa," Hotaru assured her. "And I'll be by your side, no matter what."

A smile bloomed on the young Princess's face. "Yeah," she grinned. "Between us and the Asteroids, we can take anything this woman can dish out. She won't get me, Hotaru. I've had to prove myself to everyone else. I'll prove it to her, too."

* * *

A day passed and then two. No more was seen of Desdaemona and for that the palace was thankful - - although Usa secretly wanted to exact some revenge on the being, deep down in her heart. King Endymion continued to improve in the infirmary and was due to be released in two days. Queen Serenity was by his side so much that often affairs of state had to be conducted in the infirmary room, which accounted for Ami's thinning patience. Gifts and well-wishes poured into the palace from all over, showing just how loved and respected Endymion and Serenity were in Japan and around the world.

Cere made it a point to avoid her Aunt Pilar as much as possible. When they did come in contact, Cere was curt and openly resentful. The palace staff soon found that Pilar could be just as stubborn and emotional as Cere. At one point, shouts could be heard echoing down the corridors of the normally placid palace and only the intervention of Minako Aino got the two parties to pull back to neutral corners. No decision came on the petition for custody. Though the age of consent in Japan was still twenty, Cere being one of the Royal Family's senshi made her a special case and government officials preferred to defer to Endymion and Serenity for this decision. That meant the case would have to wait until Endymion was well.

Jun, meanwhile, integrated herself back into daily life tentatively. Many of the staff tried to ease her transition, because they'd come to like the quiet, disciplined teen and they could see how guilty she felt about what she had done in her past. Others, though, still gave her a wary eye and a wider berth than usual. And Jun would feel bad all over again.

One day approaching dusk outside the palace, Cere walked along a path headed for one of the palace side gates. She'd been roaming through the Queen's garden, listening to the plants and telling them her troubles. Since they were plants, they couldn't offer advice that was much above "look to the sun" or "keep your roots covered", but they were good listeners. Approaching the gate, she spotted Jun mounting her hover bike.

"Going somewhere?" Cere asked as she walked up.

"I need some open road," Jun sighed, holding her helmet in both hands. She wore her Dura-mesh wind suit. "It's getting a little confining in there. Too many 'looks', you know?"

Cere put her hand on Jun's. "You're coming back," Cere asked, "right?"

"Yeah," Jun replied with a melancholy smile. "I don't have anyplace to run to. Besides, running is for cowards."

"Where did you learn that? Ves?" Cere smirked. "I've always thought a strategic retreat can be a valuable tool - - especially if your opponent is bigger and uglier than you."

"So what about you?" Jun asked. "You out here avoiding Aunt Pilar?"

"Uh huh," Cere sighed. "The less I see of her, the more I can resist the urge to scratch her eyes out. Last night she wanted to take me to visit the art museum here in Crystal Tokyo - - like I can't see through that one."

"Maybe she genuinely wants to make up." Jun offered.

"I doubt it."

"Maybe not. Maybe she realizes what she's done and is trying to change," Jun persisted. "You know - - like us."

"I know her. You don't," Cere maintained. "I just wish I knew what she was after."

"All right," Jun surrendered. "You know her. But just remember, Cere, if she is sincere and you push her away, you might be losing something valuable. Ves doesn't have any family left. Palla-Palla's doesn't want anything to do with her, and I don't even know who or where mine are. You've got someone and she's reaching out to you. I'm not saying you have to go back to Brasilia with her. I'd prefer you didn't. I'm just saying," and Jun paused a moment to find the proper words, "you don't have to burn the bridge to say 'no'."

Cere scowled and turned introspective. "I think I liked you better when you were quiet," she whispered. Jun sprouted a smile.

And the ground shook. At first, the two teens feared it was an earthquake, for even in the thirtieth century no cure had been found for shifting tectonic plates. But they both realized it was too short to be anything more than a mild tremor. Relief was about to flood into them when the air was pierced by a titanic sound. It seemed to be a cross between a sharp steam whistle and a lion's roar, only fifty times as loud. The pair turned to the sound.

Looming up out of the ocean near the eastern shore of Crystal Tokyo, towering a mile into the air, was a gigantic upright lizard. It threw its head back and bellowed another defiant cry as a huge tail spined with bony prongs swung and devastated part of the seaside shops and restaurants.

Continued in Chapter 6


	6. Went Down To The Crossroads

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 6: "Went Down To The Crossroads"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

Air cars zoomed overhead, rocketing past the palace headed for the east bay. Jun stared up at the titanic erect lizard looming over Crystal Tokyo from the bay, its every movement bringing destruction and chaos to the waterfront. It was impossible - - it had to be. Lizards this tall shouldn't exist, not even in Tokyo. She flashed back to a cheesy science fiction film she'd caught Ves watching between assignments when they were in the twentieth century. The film makers had no idea.

"General Senshi alert!" Cere exclaimed into her senshi communicator. "Mobilize at the aero-pad! We're needed now!" She turned to run into the palace, but stopped and looked back. Jun was still staring up at it. "Come on, Jun!"

"What can we do?" Jun asked, mesmerized by the sheer size of the creature.

"We can probably do a lot more than those poor CDP pilots can!" Cere replied.

"But how do we stop something like that?"

Cere shrugged. "The Princess, I guess - - if it comes down to it."

"But what if even she can't stop it? What if the only way to stop it is . . .?" Jun couldn't even bring herself to say it.

"Kill it?" Cere finished the thought. "If we have to, we have to."

Jun's tension became a thing alive.

"Jun, would you rather all those poor people on the waterfront die?" Cere barked. Jun didn't answer immediately. "Jun, if it comes down to killing it, we can let Ves do it. She'd probably insist anyway." She grabbed the unresponsive Jun. "Come on, Jun, we need you!"

"I . . ." Jun stammered. Cere felt a little bit of herself die inside. Another tremor rocked the city.

"We can't wait any longer," Cere said, pushing herself away. She ran to the gravity lift and took it up to the aero-pad. Emerging, she found Usa, Hotaru and Palla-Palla already there.

"How long has that thing been out there?" Hotaru asked.

"A few minutes," Cere reported. "It must have bobbed out of the bay. Think you can wangle us an air car, Usa?"

"Piece of cake," Usa nodded. "I'll get us one while we're waiting for Jun and Ves."

"Usa, you can't pilot an air car!" gasped Hotaru.

"I got my hover car license last week!" Usa countered.

"IT'S NOT THE SAME!"

"Hotaru, a hover car will take forever to get there and the 'EL' conveyors won't be safe. Besides, if we crash, I'll try to aim it for that creature's head."

"If only I knew you were kidding," murmured Hotaru. As Usa ran off, the others transformed. Suddenly Pallas turned to Ceres.

"Jun-Jun's not coming?" gasped Pallas.

"Honestly, I wish you could turn that off!" scowled Ceres. "No, she's not coming. I guess it's too soon."

"I'm here," they heard Jun sigh as she stepped out of the gravity lift. "I'll do it. Your guilt trip worked, Ceres."

"Glad to have you," Ceres smiled. Saturn and Pallas were smiling, too.

"I just hope I don't clutch at the wrong moment," Jun offered. "So where's Ves?"

Just then, a door to the aero-pad opened and Ves came racing out, dressed only in a towel. Her hair was bundled in a crystalline cap and her skin was wet. Immediately Ceres started laughing.

"I WAS IN THE SHOWER, OK!" bellowed Ves. At that moment, Usa swung around with an air car and landed. Everyone steadied themselves against the exhaust while Ves struggled to keep her towel from blowing away. Belligerently Ves pointed at Cere. "And one more smirk out of you and I'm going to see how far you can bounce!" The five teen girls climbed on board and the air car sped away toward the east bay.

Immediately the air car was in the air space lanes over Crystal Tokyo. And almost as immediately, Usa had to swerve the vehicle violently to avoid another car in its assigned lane.

"PRINCESS, GET US THERE IN ONE PIECE, HUH?" shrieked Ceres.

"I'm trying!" Usa snapped back.

"Usa! Engage the emergency beacon!" Saturn cried.

Fingers danced over the control panel. Instantly the other air cars shifted to different lanes to allow the craft to pass directly. Everyone in the ship breathed a sigh of relief. Usa glanced over and saw Saturn's baleful stare.

"Hey, I'm still a better pilot than Aunt Minako," the Princess replied. No one in the ship could really argue that point.

"Juno," Pallas said suddenly, tugging on Sailor Juno's arm. "Pallas feels funny."

"What is it?" Juno asked, as the others turned to look or listen. "Do you sense something?"

"No. She just feels," and Pallas searched her brain for the proper word, "different."

"I kind of feel different myself," Vesta confessed. "Stronger, you know? Like I can do more."

"Now that you mention it," Saturn added, "so do I." She thought for a moment. "I think I have a new attack."

"Your senshi powers evolved?" Usa asked.

"Yes, I think that's it," Saturn nodded.

"Gear! What is it?"

Saturn flushed immediately. She looked down with a grimace. "I-I rather not say."

The reaction surprised Usa, but she didn't have time to question her friend further. They were as close to the battleground as they dared go. Searching for a landing spot, the Princess found one and put the craft down, effectively though hardly smoothly. Once on the ground, she mentally summoned Helios and transformed into Sailor Moon while the others piled out of the air car and assessed the situation.

"I'll take it!" Vesta exclaimed.

"No, wait!" Ceres interjected. She had a strange look in her eye. "Let me try my new attack. Floral Animation!"

Instantly the landscaping plants from the broken, devastated restaurants began to surge upward from their spots in the soil. As fast as the eye could see, the plants grew and intertwined, knitting together until they formed a humanoid shape. The plant humanoid continued to grow, shooting up into the air as more plants wove themselves into the body. In seconds the plant humanoid stood as tall as the monstrous lizard.

The lizard reacted warily, crouching down in case of attack and firing off a warning bellow. To everyone's amazement, the plant humanoid moved, lunging at the giant lizard and seizing it with both hands. The huge lizard began to resist and the twin giants engaged in a struggle for dominance. Waves kicked up from the bay and sloshed onto the wharf, flooding the already damaged restaurant section.

As she emerged from the air car, Sailor Moon spotted a red figure off to one side, watching the proceedings. She broke from the car and ran towards her.

"You!" she spat, pointing at Desdaemona reclining against a building. "Did you do this? Is this another one of your 'tests'?"

"Don't you like it?" Desdaemona asked with a haughty gleam in her scarlet eye. "I picked something significant to the mythology of your people. I believe this was popular with your people once."

"Send it back!" Sailor Moon demanded.

"That would hardly give me the answers I'm searching for, would it?"

"But all this destruction? All the lives you've destroyed or endangered?"

"Princess, we've been over this," Desdaemona smiled.

"You!" Sailor Moon exclaimed, quaking with rage.

"Would you strike me down?" Desdaemona asked.

"Would it help?" Sailor Moon hissed.

"That would depend upon how hard and how often you struck," Desdaemona replied. The mocking tone and the frustration of the situation drove Sailor Moon back to her friends.

"Kick ass!" exclaimed Vesta, watching Ceres' plant being wrestle the giant lizard. "Toss him back into the sea!"

"I'm trying!" Ceres responded, her brow knit with the strain.

"Here, I'll help you out!" Vesta said, her new power dawning on her. "Fauna Combination - - Pterodactyl spider!"

Senshi scattered as Vesta transformed into a twelve foot tall spider with leathery wings extending from two of the huge arachnid's legs. Leaping up into the air, the spider began gliding in a circular manner around the massive lizard. As it flew, the spider began emitting a silken web from its abdomen. This web, though, was the size and tensile strength of a metal cable, and far more sticky. As Vesta circled the two combatants, her web line began to encircle them both, capturing them in a growing cocoon of sticky silk.

"Vesta, you snared my plant man!" yelled Ceres.

"As long as it sends them both back to the bottom of the sea, who cares!" Vesta yelled back. Ceres scowled, but did her best to hold onto the lizard with her plant humanoid.

* * *

Back at the palace, Rei and Minako were watching coverage of the incident in Tokyo harbor on a vid-stream in Minako's quarters. While they watched, Artemis worked on a computer station.

"Looks like the kids have gained a new level of attacks," Minako observed.

"It's about time," Rei said. "We had three levels of attacks by the time we were sixteen. I was beginning to wonder about them."

"Well, we did have a lot more practice than they have," Minako added. "The twentieth century was a dangerous time. Sometimes I wonder how I survived it." Minako smirked. "Then I just remember how awesome I was."

"And that makes me wonder how everyone else survived," quipped Artemis as he typed. A wad of paper bounced off of his head.

"You found anything yet, Captain Comedy?" Minako barked.

"Given that the records in Brasilia are all in Portugese and the translation program doesn't always translate with one hundred percent accuracy, not yet," Artemis shot back. "Besides, they're pretty good at encrypting banking records down there."

"If you're not up to it," Minako offered.

"Why don't you go back to telling Rei how great you are," Artemis grumbled.

"It would be nice if we could find something concrete on this Pilar woman," Rei sighed.

"Well you think she's wrong. That ought to be enough," Minako shrugged. "When has that sight thing of yours ever been wrong?"

"It's not enough, Minako," Artemis said as he worked. "I've already checked the custody papers. They're legal. And since age of consent is still twenty in Japan, the government ministers would probably recommend to Endymion that he turn Cere over. If we can find a better reason than 'Rei has a feeling', we can give him an excuse to deny the claim."

"And I'd really like to see that happen," Rei added. "Cere has come a long way since Serenity brought her here. She's good for Usa. She's good for Hotaru, too."

"And you don't know what 'breaking up the family' will do to the other Asteroids," Minako said.

"Plus they all work well as a unit," Rei said, glancing at the action in the harbor. "Remember when Ami was going to go to school in Germany, how that threw us all off? Losing Cere might jeopardize the team - - and put Usa at risk."

"Can't have that," Minako nodded, glancing away from the vid-stream. "Anything yet, Fuzzy?"

"You'd think after all these years of being badgered by you, I'd be immune to it," the white cat scowled. "Nothing red flags in her financial accounts - - although this woman can go through money faster than you can."

"That is impressive," Minako noted. Rei gave her a sideways look.

"Got a link to an attorney," Artemis indicated. "Seems to be connected to Cere's family more than the aunt. I'll just look over the legal items, see if anything stands out."

"Look at Vesta!" Minako exclaimed. "She's almost got that Godzilla knock-off webbed up! Not bad."

"Hmm," Rei scowled.

"Aw, lighten up on the kid, will you?"

"You know how I feel about her," Rei replied, tight-lipped.

"Yeah, but we tolerate you anyway," quipped Minako.

"Well, well, well," Artemis exclaimed suddenly.

"What, what, what?" Minako asked, leaning over the cat to look at the screen. Rei peered over Minako's shoulder.

"Take a look at that," Artemis nodded at the screen.

"Well look at that," grinned Minako.

"A trust fund?" Rei said with surprise. "No wonder she's suddenly so interested in Cere. If she gets custody, she could get control of the trust fund."

"Yeah, and buy herself a dozen more face lifts," Minako joked. "Good work, Artemis. You officially rock."

"Elementary, my dear Aino," Artemis smirked.

* * *

The enormous lizard strained as Vesta's web cocoon tightened around it and Ceres' plant humanoid. Waves of water sloshed up onto the wharf, displaced by the huge creatures efforts.

"Vesta, he's fighting back!" Juno called out. "Watch yourself!"

"There's no way that thing is going to rip through my web!" Vesta boasted.

And with a violent effort, the lizard did just that. The sticky silk tore away as the creature spread its forearms out and flung its head skyward, bellowing in rage.

"Wrong again, genius," Ceres scowled. She attempted to reanimate her plant humanoid, but the parts that weren't crushed were torn and useless.

"Maybe Pallas can scare it away," Pallas said, stepping forward because she sensed the reluctance of Juno and Saturn to use their new abilities. "Fiery Incantation!"

Pointing at the monster, Pallas erected a wall of flame in front of it. The lizard flinched back from the massive panel of fire, intimidated by it as animals naturally were. But what Pallas failed to realize was that fire needed something to burn. The only thing near was the remnants of the plant humanoid Ceres had erected. As the flames jumped onto it, turning the humanoid into a towering torch, Ceres flinched back as if struck.

"Ceres?" Pallas gasped in alarm.

"God, Pallas, warn somebody when you're going to do that!" Ceres gasped, holding her head. "I'm mentally connected with my plant models! For a second there, it felt like I was on fire!"

"Sorry," Pallas whined.

Sailor Moon had her Moon Kaleidoscope out, but couldn't get a clear shot at the monster while the other senshi had it engaged. She turned to Saturn, who had her glaive out ready to defend her friend.

"Can you do anything, Saturn?" Sailor Moon asked.

"I can't get close enough to use my glaive," Saturn reported.

"Don't you have a new attack, too?" her friend asked. "Didn't you evolve to a new level with the others?"

Saturn grimaced and avoided her friend's eyes. "I did - - but I'd rather not use it unless I have to." This admission surprised Sailor Moon and got her wondering again, but she didn't press the issue.

Vesta swooped in for another pass at the lizard. She had the monster bracketed between her and the fiery torch that had once been Ceres' plant soldier. Her aim was to use her spider's venom to disable the lizard, then wrap it up. At her gargantuan size, her venom would be potent enough to affect even a creature this large.

But the monster swung wildly at both the torch and Vesta. It struck the torch and sent it pin-wheeling into the ocean. Vesta had to swerve to avoid it, which led her right into the wheel house of the lizard's swinging tail. The impact sent Vesta flying past her comrades and into the air car they'd arrived in. Vesta rolled off onto the street and lay dazed, while her point of impact with the air car's rear engine left a huge, sparking dent. Now truly enraged, the giant lizard headed for shore, threatening to rampage through the harbor district like a movie monster of old.

"Beautiful Incantation!" Pallas shouted, holding out her hands. Her telekinesis grabbed the lizard around its waist and held it in place. Immediately the monster began thrashing to pull loose of the invisible hands grasping it. Everyone looked to Pallas and saw that the senshi was straining to hold the huge beast in place.

Ceres looked to Juno and got a look of stricken fear in return. While this went on, Sailor Moon ran forward, wielding the Moon Kaleidoscope.

"Moon Gorgeous . . .!" she started to say, the Kaleidoscope sparkling with building energy.

But a thrashing foot caught the wharf and tore a huge chunk out of it. The shock-wave sent the ground shuddering. Sailor Moon was pitched off of her feet. She fell backwards and landed hard, the Moon Kaleidoscope skittering away from her. Frantically she lunged for the weapon, but it was out of her reach. Scrambling up, she was about to make another attempt to grab it.

"SAILOR MOON, LOOK OUT!" shrieked Saturn.

Sailor Moon looked back and saw the gigantic foot of the monster above her, moving rapidly to crush her where she stood.

Continued in Chapter 7


	7. Burden Of Proof

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 7: "Burden Of Proof"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

It all unfolded right before Juno's eyes. Sailor Moon was getting to her feet when Sailor Saturn screamed in alarm. They all looked up and saw the massive foot of the huge lizard they had been battling in the Crystal Tokyo wharf district was coming straight for the Princess. The monster had been thrashing wildly to try to escape the telekinetic hand gripping it, courtesy of Sailor Pallas. Now it threatened to crush Sailor Moon before she could retrieve the Moon Kaleidoscope or get out of the way.

And all Juno could do was watch, paralyzed by her fear of using her abilities against another being.

"SILENCE WALL!" Saturn shrieked.

A force shield sprang up around Sailor Moon just in time to protect her from the beast's foot. It slid away along the shield while the monster sought its footing. But the danger wasn't over just yet. The beast was still thrashing around in the harbor, tossing huge waves up onto the wharf and slashing at buildings and people alike with its massive tail. A motion caught Juno's eye beyond the monster. It was a body bobbing in the sea water just beyond it. One of the unlucky patrons or workers of one of the wharf restaurants, killed by this monster's blind rampage - - killed because they hadn't stopped it.

Because she hadn't stopped it, not even lifted a finger to stop it. Her abilities had caused a death in her past. Was her inaction causing death now? Juno's brow furrowed as she struggled with the dilemma.

"Vortex Instigation!" Juno called out, her heart beating rapid-fire as her new attack came into play. She silently prayed she had made the right decision.

Immediately the water of the harbor began spinning rapidly. As it spun around the thrashing lizard, it rose up around it until a gigantic water spout surrounded the beast. It struggled to fight free of the watery vortex. Juno poured it on, the water spinning faster and higher. It threatened to lift the monster out of the harbor itself and up into the air. Juno felt the power singing inside of her, but she handled it warily, reluctant to give in to it too quickly.

But with a final, desperate lunge, the monster burst from the vortex and back into the harbor. A wave kicked up and drenched everybody. Surprised and disappointed by her failure, Juno lost concentration and the vortex faded, dropping more water on everybody.

Reaching a decision herself, Saturn moved forward. Stopping within feet of the towering monster, Saturn raised her glaive into the air. Immediately the monster sensed an attack and moved to the defend itself. But Saturn was unfazed.

"Azrael's Slumber!" Saturn called out, her tiny voice rising above the thrashing water and the inarticulate roar of the towering beast.

Saturn's glaive began to glow with energy. At first everyone assumed the energy was coming from Saturn. Then they realized that she was drawing the energy from the monster itself, siphoning it away like a leech. As more vitality drained away from the beast, it began to teeter with a growing lethargy. And Saturn's glaive glowed like a torch.

"Look out!" yelled Vesta suddenly. "That thing is about to fall over!"

Quickly Saturn retreated as the gigantic lizard began to topple. It lost its balance and fell onto the wharf, crushing the remains of several restaurants where it fell. The entire wharf shook with the impact. When the dust settled, they could see the lizard still struggling to get up, but its movements were weak and sluggish.

"So," Ceres began as the senshi gathered around Sailor Moon, "now what do we do with it?"

"I suppose CDP will do something with it," Saturn said. She held her glaive to the ground to dissipate the energy siphoned from the beast.

"They're not going to kill it, are they?" Vesta asked. "Because I don't think it had it in for us or anything."

"How so?" Ceres queried.

"It's actions," Vesta answered. "I mean, I know animals. I know the way they move, the way they think. The way that thing moved - - it wasn't in predator mode. It seemed like it was - - scared - - trying to escape and protect itself."

"Pallas thinks so, too," Pallas nodded. "She could hear some of the big lizard's thoughts. She couldn't understand them, but it seemed like the big lizard was very scared."

"I suppose it would be," Sailor Moon mused. "Snatched out of whatever place it came from and plopped down in the middle of a strange place, surrounded by things its never seen before. I wish we could just send it back where it came from."

"Do you?" Desdaemona asked, suddenly behind Sailor Moon. She and the senshi whirled to face her. Saturn's glaive moved down and out to form a line of defense between the red woman and her friend. Vesta stepped forward belligerently.

"Haven't you done enough damage?" Sailor Moon demanded. "Why don't you send that thing back?"

"Aren't you drifting from the question at hand, Princess? " Desdaemona inquired with an ironic smirk. "Your wish was that YOU and your friends could send it back. Do you truly wish to return that creature to its natural abode?"

"Yes."

"Then return it," Desdaemona replied. "You have the power."

"I do?" Sailor Moon asked.

"You doubt this? You are your mother's daughter. You possess the power. Is it your belief in yourself that holds you back?" Desdaemona flashed that smirk again. "Or do you lack her - - maturity?"

Sailor Moon responded with a cold glare. Without a word, she turned and walked up to the still thrashing lizard. When she was close enough, Sailor Moon spread out her hands and the pink crystal emerged from her chest. Catching sight of the gem's brilliant pink glow, the lizard began to struggle more. It was too weak to get up, though.

"You do realize, of course," Desdaemona added, "that the energy expenditure may have adverse effects upon you, do you not Princess?" Sailor Moon turned and glared back at her. "Possibly fatal effects?"

"What am I supposed to do?" she demanded. "Stand here and let this poor creature die? It doesn't belong here and CDP won't be able to keep it penned without hurting it. And if it's forced to exist here, it'll either hurt itself or someone else. I can't sit by and let that happen. Everything that lives deserves to live. I won't condemn that creature just because it's inconvenient. And I won't condemn innocent people because it might injure me. I guess someone like you wouldn't understand that."

She turned back and raised her jewel up. Pink energy flooded the wharf. As it touched the lizard, the beast grew quiet and stared up at the jewel. And if it were possible for the creature to feel awe, it felt awe.

"Please send this poor creature back to its home," Sailor Moon whispered, her face peaceful and without stress, "whole and unharmed."

As their princess worked, Saturn leaned in to the others.

"We can't let her risk herself like this. Maybe we should help her," the waif suggested. The others nodded. "Saturn Power!"

"Ceres Power!"

"Juno Power!"

"Pallas Power!"

"Vesta Power!"

And as the energy of her five senshi flowed into her, pink energy flowed out from Sailor Moon's crystal. It blanketed everything until nothing could be seen but brilliant pink light. When it dissipated, the lizard was gone.

Then Sailor Moon sank to her knees. With squeals of alarm, the others ran over to her. Saturn supported her while the others crowded around.

"Sailor Moon, are you all right?" gasped Saturn.

"Yeah," she panted. "Just don't ask me to do anything like that again anytime soon! Thanks for the assist, you guys. You really helped me pull it off." She tried to clear her head while the others breathed again. "I'm OK. Just a little dizzy."

"So business as usual, huh?" Vesta jabbed slyly.

"Bite me, Vesta," Sailor Moon replied with a tired grin.

Warily, Saturn looked over to where Desdaemona had been. But no one was there now.

* * *

The four Asteroids headed for their quarters. It had been a tiring adventure, but they had won and that made it bearable. If anything, they were more perplexed than fatigued, wondering what was going on and what connection it had to the mysterious red woman. The fact that Usa seemed to know her made it even more interesting.

"So who do you think she is?" Ves asked what everyone was thinking.

"Palla-Palla doesn't know," the teen began, "but she's not sure the red woman is a people."

"What do you mean?" Jun inquired.

"Palla-Palla doesn't know," the teen's brow furrowed. "She just - - doesn't seem like a people. Kind of like Prince Horsie-Man, only more."

Everyone exchanged puzzled looks.

"Princess seems to know her," Ves continued. "Maybe we should go ask her."

"And maybe we should wait until she's ready to tell us," Jun suggested.

"And maybe she should tell us because WE'RE ready," Ves countered.

Then everyone ran into Cere, who had stopped suddenly. They quickly found out why. Aunt Pilar was waiting near their quarters.

"Cerese," Pilar smiled anxiously. "Where have you been?"

"What's it to you?" Ves snapped belligerently.

"Ves," Cere said. Ves turned to her. "I'll handle this."

Ves was reluctant to yield, but was successfully herded away by Jun and Palla-Palla. She did manage to give the older woman a menacing glare before they all disappeared into their quarters. Gratefully Pilar closed the distance between her and Cere.

"How do you stand living with that," Pilar stammered, "creature from the gutter?"

"What do you want, Aunt Pilar?" Cere frowned.

"I wanted to talk to you, but you were gone. Where have you been?"

"I had things to do," Cere replied curtly.

"With those girls? They're bound to get you into more trouble," sneered Pilar. "Particularly that gutter trash."

"Have you been watching the vid-streams from the harbor district?" Cere snapped.

"I saw some of it. It was hard to believe. Does that happen often here? Just one more reason why you should come back to Brasilia."

"Well 'those girls' and I were fighting that monster," Cere fumed. "The Princess is Sailor Moon and I and 'those girls' are her senshi - - her guardians. Take a look at the stream again. I'm Sailor Ceres."

Pilar stared in shock.

"That why I can't go back to Brasilia," Cere continued. "I'm needed here. And I don't want to go back to Brasilia, because I LIKE it here. Not that you've bothered to ask me."

"Well this is," Pilar reeled, "unacceptable! How can these people ask a young girl like you to do something like this?"

"Because I have powers, Aunt Pilar," Cere told her. "And this gives me the chance to help people with those powers - - instead of hurt people like we used to do. And it gives us a chance to pay back on the debt we owe this place - - for mistakes we made."

But Pilar just shook her head. "No, this is out of the question. I can't allow this. I can't. What would my sister say? I can't . . .!"

"Well I see you still haven't changed," Cere grumbled, gliding past the woman and heading for the entrance to her quarters. "It's still all about you." The door hissed shut behind her.

* * *

"Oh, that was just such a magnificent performance, Honey!" Serenity squealed, her arms locked in a death grip around her daughter's neck. Endymion watched proudly from his infirmary bed while his wife squeezed the life out of their daughter and she struggled to get away.

"All right, Mom!" fumed the Princess, finally prying loose. "Gods, would you get a grip! I'm not five anymore!"

"We watched the coverage on vid-stream," Endymion told her. "You and your senshi handled the situation as well as you could. And I was impressed by their new attacks."

"And it was so nice of you to return that creature to its home," Serenity added. "I only wish there hadn't been so much damage and so many people hurt. What was the number Chief Nakamura gave you?"

"Eight dead and twenty-three injured," Endymion reported. "Plus the seaside restaurant district is wrecked. Still, if Usa and her senshi hadn't been there, it could have been a lot worse."

"And all for this Desdaemona's 'enlightenment'," scowled Usa.

"I don't understand how someone could cause such turmoil and pain for other people just to test someone," Serenity said. "What could she possibly be thinking?"

"Apparently we're 'insignificant' to her," Usa groused. "Helios said the only thing that matters to her is her tests and the information they give her."

"Maybe if I could talk to her, I could get her to realize what she's doing to people," Serenity proposed.

"Good luck, Mom," Usa shook her head. "I couldn't even tell you how to find her. I sure don't know if even you could get through to her." She turned back to her father. "So how are you doing, Pop?"

"The worst is over," he smiled reassuringly. "I'm just here for another day for observation and to get my strength back."

"That's good," Usa said meekly. "I was scared there for a while, Pop. I thought we were going to lose you." She leaned in and hugged her father, who returned the gesture as best he could while Serenity looked on, beaming. "That's another one I owe this Desdaemona woman."

"Remember what your mother says about vengeance," Endymion advised her.

"Yeah," Usa sighed. "But this woman is making it really difficult, you know." Endymion patted her on the back. Then Usa bounced to her feet. "Well, if you're OK, Pop, I'm going to go. I've got like a billion things to do. And I really should talk and plan more with the others in case this Desdaemona woman shows up again. Keep getting better." The girl headed for the door. "See you, Mom. Don't bug the nurses too much."

"Brat," Serenity muttered with a small smile. With that, Rei and Minako peeked into the room.

"You up to a little state business?" Minako asked. "Because Artemis found something that may make your decision about Cere and her aunt a whole lot easier to make."

* * *

"So that's what this is all about?" Cere asked. She, her fellow Asteroid senshi, Hotaru and Usa were gathered on benches near the garden outside the palace. Usa had just explained to them her dealings with Desdaemona and her connection to the battle they'd recently fought in the harbor district.

"This is the same woman who attacked your father, isn't it?" Hotaru asked.

"Yeah," Usa scowled. "This business at the wharf must have been another one of her 'tests'. I figured I better warn you guys. I expect her to try again."

"What does she want from you?" Jun wondered out loud.

"I don't know," Usa replied with frustration. "It's like she's throwing me into these situations to see how I'll react - - like she's never heard of a computer sim!"

"And all the destruction she causes?" Cere goggled.

"Doesn't matter to her," Usa sighed. "Until she finds out what she wants to know, everyone and everything is expendable."

"But Queen Serenity says we're all supposed to be nice to each other and she wouldn't lie," Palla-Palla chimed in.

"Not everybody's as nice as the Queen, Stupid," muttered Ves.

"Is there some way we can be on guard for her?" Hotaru asked.

"Not that I know of," Usa shrugged. "She seems almost as powerful as Mom. Maybe more powerful - - if that's possible."

"There are possibilities in this universe that you have yet to guess, Princess."

Everybody sprang off the bench and turned to the voice. Desdaemona stood in the garden, smiling benevolently at them.

"Everybody transform," Usa hissed, "now."

Without hesitation, the six teens transformed into their senshi forms. Vesta, though, did more than transform.

"Fauna Assimilation," she shouted, "cheetah!"

Transforming into a full grown female cheetah, Vesta cut the distance between her and Desdaemona in an eye-blink and lunged, claws and fangs bared. But she passed through the red entity's body as if it were mist. The cat landed nimbly and pivoted.

"She's not there!" Vesta growled. "It's got to be a hologram!"

"I am no mere image," Desdaemona replied smugly. "I merely have no desire to fight you."

"Then what do you want now?" Sailor Moon demanded.

"To take you and your friends on a journey," Desdaemona said with ominous mirth.

"And if we don't want to go?" Sailor Moon asked her.

Suddenly they were no longer in the Queen's garden outside of the palace. They were in a frozen, snow-covered wasteland, a dark indigo sky hanging over them like a gigantic tarpaulin. A fierce wind howled past them, draining much of the heat from their heightened senshi forms.

Continued in Chapter 8


	8. In The Footsteps Of My ForeBearers

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 8: "In The Footsteps of My Fore-bearers"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K., from the original story by Naoko Takeuchi and the teleplay by Yoshiyuki Tomita

Everyone looked around. The scene had suddenly changed. No longer were they all in Crystal Tokyo. Instead, they were in a vast, frozen wasteland. An arctic wind whistled through them, slicing the warmth from their frames, while off in the distance a plume of gray-black smoke rose into the air like a grave marker.

"What the Hell happened?" howled Sailor Vesta, shouting to be heard above the whistling wind. The gale whipped up their tiny skirts and the six girls huddled together. "Fauna Assimilation - - Polar Bear!"

Vesta mutated into a six foot polar bear. Instantly Pallas hugged her for protection against the elements.

"Silence Wall!" Saturn shouted out. Her force shield erected around the six senshi. "That should keep the wind out, at least. Sailor Moon, what do you think happened?"

"I don't know," Sailor Moon replied. "But I'm wondering if it's another one of Desdaemona's tests. Is this supposed to be Crystal Tokyo after some disaster?"

"It can't be," Juno spoke up. "This snow cover has been here for millennia. I can sense it." She glanced at her senshi communicator, which doubled as a watch. "And look at the time! It says it's 6:41, but the sun is almost overhead. This has to be one of the polar caps!"

"Look at the sun," Ceres whispered. They all glanced up warily, but found no burning ball of light. Instead, the sun was blotted with dark spots until the light was leeched away by half. "It's covered in spots."

"Covered in spots," Sailor Moon puzzled, a fragment of a memory tickling at her brain.

"Vesta," whined Pallas. "Pallas hears bad thoughts! She doesn't like them!"

"Where? Can you tell from where?" Vesta asked.

"Over there," she pointed at the plume in the distance. "By the smoke."

"Can you make sense of the thoughts, Pallas?" Juno asked.

"Bad thoughts," Pallas whimpered, visibly upset by what she sensed. "Hurting and killing everyone. Covering up Mister Sunshine so she can come."

"Who can come?"

Pallas thought for a moment. "Somebody named Metallia."

"Oh no," Sailor Moon whispered. Everyone turned to her and found the Princess white as a sheet.

"Sailor Moon?" Saturn inquired, going up to her friend. "Do you know this Metallia?"

"This is D-Point," Sailor Moon said, staring ahead at the plume of smoke in the distance like specters were dancing on her grave. "This is where Mom and the elder Senshi had the final showdown with Queen Beryl."

Only Saturn and Juno seemed to understand the gravity of that statement. The others looked at each other curiously. Sailor Moon suddenly whirled and looked up to the sky.

"YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DO THIS!" she yelled at the graying skies. "YOU CAN'T MAKE THEM FACE THIS! YOU CAN'T! I WON'T DO IT! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DO IT!"

"No one is making you do anything, Princess," said Desdaemona, who was suddenly, impossibly inside Saturn's force bubble. "You are always free to choose your own course of action as you see fit."

"Like it's that simple!" Sailor Moon fumed at the red woman. "You know that if Beryl isn't stopped, she'll blot out the sun with sunspots and use that energy to bring Metallia to Earth! And then all life on the planet is doomed!"

"I have never said your choices did not come without consequences, Princess," the woman smiled almost gleefully.

"I will never - - EVER - - understand how some beings can derive pleasure from the misery of others," Sailor Moon snarled with unconcealed contempt. With that, she turned on her heel and began marching toward the plume of smoke. Saturn had to drop her shield to keep her friend from running into it. Confused, the senshi fell in behind their Princess.

"Are we going to take on this Queen Beryl?" Ceres asked warily.

"We don't have much choice," Sailor Moon said in clipped fashion. "But be very careful, everyone. We're going to run into a squad of youmas. They're called the D-D Girls."

"Hey, the temperature's higher," Vesta observed, still in polar bear form. "And the wind's stopped."

"The radiation from Beryl's lair is affecting the climate around us," Sailor Moon explained. "That's not important. Right now we have to worry about the D-D Girls."

"Sailor Moon," Juno piped up. "I remember reading about what happened here. Didn't the elders - - die?"

"Yes," Sailor Moon said. She stopped and then turned to her friends. "And that's why we all have to be extremely careful from now on. Because I AM NOT going to lose you five the way Mom lost her senshi."

With that, Sailor Moon resumed her march toward Beryl's stronghold. The others fell in behind her. Saturn increased her pace with no small effort to try to catch up to her friend. The others gravitated around Juno.

"So what's all this about the elders dying?" Ceres whispered to Juno.

"If I remember the story right," Juno recalled, "the elders were killed one by one protecting Queen Serenity - - the original Sailor Moon - - so she could get to Queen Beryl."

"Then who . . .?"

"It's complicated," Juno answered.

"And if we're reenacting that time," Ceres began. She trailed off and her sisters could sense the fear radiating up from her.

"Ceres," Vesta said gruffly.

"Can it, OK!" Ceres snapped. "I knew this job came with risks, but I didn't think it would come this soon. I've - - still got so many things I still want to do."

"Get a grip. Nobody wants to die. But if this is my time, just let me go ripping the throat out of one of those D-D Girls."

"Don't worry. I'll do my job," Ceres said almost bitterly. "It's just - - not fair."

"Welcome to life," Vesta grunted. "That goes for you, too, Stupid. Can we count on you?"

"Pallas will do what she's supposed to," Pallas answered. And in spite of the quaver in her voice, everyone thought she meant it.

"Juno?" Vesta inquired. "You may have to kill one of them - - or all of them."

"At least," Juno exhaled with a sorrowful soul-weariness, "I'll be doing it for the right reason this time."

"Sailor Moon," Saturn whispered when she finally caught up with her friend. "You really have to calm down."

"I don't want to calm down, Saturn," Sailor Moon replied. "This is so wrong!"

"I know," Saturn argued. "But the angrier you get, the more you're going to sabotage your power, remember? Anger and hatred dilutes your crystal's power. And we're going to need that power."

"She speaks truly, Maiden," Sailor Moon heard in her mind and knew it was Helios, speaking to her from within her. She stopped.

"You're right, Saturn," Sailor Moon admitted. "She's playing with my head. This whole scene is playing with my head. I have to get control of myself. I can't do anybody any good if I'm . . ."

"Look!" Ceres exclaimed, pointing.

Before them, forty yards in the distance, was Queen Serenity. She was suspended from a rope above the frozen snow, her body battered and bleeding. Slowly, agonizingly she looked up at them, at Sailor Moon specifically. Great pain was etched into her face.

"U-Usa," she rasped out, her melodic voice torn and harsh. "Help me." The pain of a thousand tortures was mirrored in her deep blue eyes.

Sailor Moon knew it was an illusion. She knew from the history files she'd read. And she knew it from the stories her Aunt Rei had told her, an inquisitive girl of eight desperate to know anything and everything about her mother's past. But it looked so real - - so painfully real.

"Come on! We got to help her!" Vesta called out.

"But it's just a picture," Pallas told them.

"Pallas, are you sure?" Ceres asked her.

"Um hmm," the small senshi nodded. "It's just a picture in all our heads. Pallas is very sure. The dragonfly woman is fibbing to all of us."

"Dragonfly," Saturn whispered. Suddenly she bolted for the image, raising her glaive up to deliver a killing stroke.

But the image changed and Saturn stopped short. Suddenly she was looking up at someone else dangling from the rope, someone else battered and broken from cruel torture and bodily injury.

"Yutaka?" Saturn whimpered, staring up at the young stripling that had captured her heart.

"Saturn, get back!" Sailor Moon shouted. The Moon Kaleidoscope materialized in her hand.

And the snow behind them exploded. Four of the D-D Girls rose up from the snow and the earth below it, rising up into the air. They were all obscenely beautiful creatures with dragonfly wings and pupil-less eyes that glowed malevolently. Their arms extended into tendrils that snapped out, wrapping around Sailor Pallas before she could move and hoisting her into the air with them.

"Pallas!" Vesta bellowed in terror. The polar bear lumbered toward the broken snow. Saturn moved to assist, then stopped and turned back to the illusion of Yutaka when she thought she detected movement. Holding her glaive ready to fend off an attack, she eyed the thing warily.

Electricity sprouted from the four D-D Girls, passed through the tendrils running from their arms to Sailor Pallas, held tightly in their grip. Pallas screamed, her cry identifying the intense pain she was enduring. The sparking electrical field caused Vesta to pull up short. And Pallas continued to scream.

"Fauna Combination!" the bear bellowed. "Dragon eel!"

With that, the bear began to morph, rising up above the senshi, above the D-D Girls and above writhing, screaming Pallas. In seconds a twenty foot winged lizard with spiked ridges on its eyebrow and massive talons on its front paws loomed over everyone. The dragon reached down, but its lumbering size made the others wonder if Vesta would be too late.

"Moon Tiara Action!" Sailor Moon cried out.

Her tiara morphed into its energy disk form and the Princess threw it. The disk arced truly, slicing through the tendrils and severing the connections. Pallas fell to the drifting snow, limp and helpless. Immediately the D-D Girls began to retreat, but one was too slow. She was snatched up in Vesta's massive dragon paw. The captive youma tried to use electricity to shock its way free, but Vesta's electrical eel power allowed the current to pass harmlessly through it. Then, mercilessly, the dragon's paw squeezed until a light green goo squirted between its fingers.

With the threat now gone, the five senshi ran up to the fallen Sailor Pallas. Ceres was the first to her and cradled the small senshi in her lap.

"Pallas, you still with us?" Ceres asked frantically.

"Hurts," the senshi whimpered. "Pallas feels like she's trapped in sticky stuff. It's hard to move."

"Let me see her," Saturn said, shoving in. "I think it's severe shock. She needs to get out of this cold. Maybe I can . . ."

"Moon Gorgeous Meditation," they all heard Sailor Moon say. Looking up, they saw her bathe Sailor Pallas with pink energy from the Moon Kaleidoscope. After a time, Pallas began to breathe more easily. Her stress eased and eventually she sat up.

"How you doing, Stupid?" Vesta asked anxiously.

"Pallas is much better now," the senshi responded. Then she looked up at Sailor Moon. "Thank you very much, Princess."

"It's OK, Pallas," Sailor Moon nodded. "Come on, let's go." The six senshi resumed their trek toward the black plume of smoke in the distance.

"So are those D-D Girls just going to try to pick us off one by one?" Ceres asked.

"That's what they did to Mom and the elders," Sailor Moon replied.

"Can we afford to guard against that the entire trip?" Juno ventured.

"Why? What were you thinking?" Vesta questioned her.

"Maybe," Juno began, "one of us could stay behind. Maybe keep them busy . . ."

"No!" Sailor Moon responded, curtly and to the point.

"But Sailor Moon."

"No, I said!" Sailor Moon argued, whirling on Juno.

"But we're in my element!" Juno fought back. "All of this ice and snow is water! I can control this entire landscape! Catch them in a blizzard they couldn't navigate out of in a hundred years!"

"That's how they got Sailor Mercury!" Sailor Moon said.

"Hey, if you want, I can stay with her," Ceres volunteered. "Don't know how much good I'll be to you. None of my plants can survive up here."

"We all go together," Sailor Moon said, turning and heading for the plume again. "And that's final!" Everyone stood, stunned by her vehemence.

"What the Hell's bugging her?" Vesta bristled. Pallas came up and touched her hand. Vesta looked at her.

"The Princess is afraid," Pallas said.

"That those things'll get us?" Pallas nodded. "But we're supposed to be the expendable ones. We're supposed to protect her."

"Yeah, well, she's boss, so there's no point arguing about it," Ceres said and fell in behind her.

As they trekked ahead, Saturn once more eased up along side of her friend.

"Usa, are you all right?" Saturn inquired.

"I'll be there when I'm needed," Sailor Moon replied.

"That's not what I mean. The way you're acting - - are you going to have the power to face Queen Beryl when you have to?"

"I know, Saturn. I have to keep control of my temper."

"Yes, but you also have to keep focus on the objective," Saturn reminded her. "Stopping Beryl, not saving your senshi."

Sailor Moon stopped and whirled on Saturn, astonished.

"You're afraid we're all going to die," Saturn continued, "just like the elders did. You can't concern yourself with that, Usa. You have to be concerned with Beryl and only Beryl. It's our job to guard you. If you're wasting precious time and energy saving us, are you going to have enough of either one to stop Beryl?"

"So I'm just supposed to stand by and let you all die?" demanded Sailor Moon.

"Would you rather the world died?" Saturn asked her.

"I can save them both!"

Saturn only looked at her. She wanted to believe, but fatalist realism told her that it was a risk they probably couldn't afford to take.

"Hey, where'd Juno go?" Ceres said suddenly. Sailor Moon's stomach dropped to the ground.

"Pallas! Lock into her thoughts! Find her!" screeched Sailor Moon.

Pallas obeyed, concentrating for a few moments. "She's over there!" Pallas pointed to a ridge they had just passed beneath.

"We'll handle it, Sailor. . ." Vesta began. But Sailor Moon raced past her and headed for the ridge. "Damn it!" Vesta spat and chased after her, the others running to catch up.

As Sailor Moon ran up the incline, her boots pushing into the drifts until she was calf deep, she saw Juno waiting, arms outstretched. Beyond her were the four surviving D-D Girls, bearing down on her confidently. Juno stood there, waiting for their arrival. Sailor Moon pressed on, spurring herself through the drifting snow. Then she stopped, realizing that she'd never make it in time. Her hand went out and once more the Moon Kaleidoscope appeared in her hand.

"Vortex Instigation!" Juno suddenly bellowed out.

And the D-D Girls were engulfed in a swirling vortex of whistling, whipping snow that rose up from beneath the bluff. The youma were inundated with the howling, twisting snow, swallowed up into the maw of the violent mini-storm.

"I told you I had them," Juno called back to Sailor Moon. "Go on! Go get Beryl!"

"Juno, look out!" Sailor Moon screamed and pointed. Juno looked back quickly and found her vortex dissolved in a massive cloud of steam. The D-D Girls had formed a molten rock barrier around them and the barrier was careening toward Juno, threatening to swallow the senshi whole.

Continued in Chapter 9


	9. Arctic Battleground

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 9: "Arctic Battleground"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K., from the original story by Naoko Takeuchi and the teleplay by Yoshiyuki Tomita

Sailor Juno scarcely had time to move before the dome of molten rock was upon her. Suddenly the light was shut out, save for the hellish red glow of the molten rock that surrounded her like a dome. At once the air temperature went from the twenties to nearly four hundred degrees. The heat was like a battering ram and Juno went down to one knee, gasping for air.

"V-Vortex," Juno gasped out, sweat pouring down over blistering skin, "Instigation!"

What snow that was left inside the dome whipped and whirled around, giving her a moment's respite from the searing heat. But as the snow struck the dome, it melted and then vaporized. In seconds, the dome was filled with super-hot steam that scalded Juno's skin and seared her lungs. On both knees now, the senshi teetered on the brink of oblivion.

"Moon Gorgeous Meditation!" Sailor Moon shouted outside of the dome, bringing the Moon Kaleidoscope to bear.

Pink energy shot out the barrel of the Kaleidoscope, bathing the dome and causing it to shimmer. At once, the molten dome faded like the illusion it was and the D-D Girls stalking the bowed Sailor Juno stopped in their tracks. The D-D Girl nearest Sailor Moon took the full brunt of her pink energy. She howled once and her form cracked like a broken mirror, then exploded into microscopic bits. Seeing the fate of their companion, the remaining three D-D Girls retreated until they were lost in the glacial wasteland.

"Maiden?" Sailor Moon heard and reflexively looked to her left. Then she realized she heard the voice of Helios in her mind.

"I'm all right, Helios," she silently reassured him. "Just keep hanging with me."

"Until the very end, my love," she felt him reply.

As the others came running up, Juno realized she was no longer baking in an oven of molten rock. As she got to her feet, the senshi realized that she never had been baking, for there was no blistering on her skin.

"Um," Juno began, chagrined, "thank you, Sailor Moon."

"Now you know why none of you can take these things by yourselves," Sailor Moon replied crossly.

"Yes, Juno, the Princess is right!" Pallas added frantically. "Those dragonfly ladies are very mean and very tricky! They lie to you with their thoughts and then sneak up on you and jump on you and do bad things! You have to be more careful, Juno!"

"Yes, ma'am," Juno replied with a wry smile.

"OK, enough blame," Sailor Moon interjected. "We have to get going." Sailor Moon led and the others followed. "Now we act as a group. They're trying to pick us off one by one. We can't let that happen. We're stronger as a group. And we can watch each other's backs as a group."

"Yeah, hunt as a pack, defend the pack," Vesta nodded. "That's usually a great way to go."

"If we're a pack," Ceres eyed her sister cynically, "given our sex, what does that make us?"

"You know what I mean," growled Vesta.

"I'm not even sure you know what you mean," Ceres shot back.

And they continued across the almost endless expanse of snow. It seemed the plume of smoke would never get closer, but it actually was. As they trekked, Saturn noticed the sky.

"It's getting darker," Saturn observed.

"Great. Just what those harpies need: the cover of night," muttered Ceres.

"I don't think it's night," Saturn said. "I think those sun spots are getting bigger. Even though we've fought off the attacks of those D-D Girls, they've been delaying us. If we can't get to Queen Beryl in time . . ."

"Well, why don't we use Sailor Teleport?" Ceres suggested.

"Is that going to leave Sailor Moon with enough energy to fight Beryl?" Juno asked. Sailor Moon stopped, so they all did. She glanced at the sky.

"I don't think we've got a choice," Sailor Moon replied. "Saturn's right, we may have been delayed too long. Besides, teleporting means we don't have to face anymore D-D Girl attacks. I say we . . ."

"LOOK OUT!" Ceres shrieked and shoved Sailor Moon aside.

Tentacles exploded up out of the snow and out of the tundra below. They coiled around Sailor Ceres before anyone could move and snapped her down into the hole.

"CERES!" cried Pallas. Everyone else looked on in shock and amazement.

"Fauna Combination!" Vesta started to yell, but Sailor Moon interceded.

"Don't go down there after her!" Sailor Moon cried, holding Vesta back. "You'll just be going to your death!"

"I'm not leaving her to die!" roared Vesta.

"She won't die!" Sailor Moon roared back. "I'll get her out!"

With that, the ground rumbled and quaked. Suddenly Ceres shot up forty feet into the air, held aloft by one of the D-D Girls. Her body was bruised and battered, showing that the senshi had been in a fight for her life. Ceres struggled in the grip of the youma's tentacles. They were wrapped around her throat and had her arms pinned to her chest. The tentacles began to constrict, bringing gigantic pressure to bear. Ceres felt the crushing constriction and strained to breathe. She looked into the face of her captor and saw sadistic relish as the youma enjoyed her distress.

Then she sensed something else.

"You're," Ceres gasped out, "human-plant hybrid! Floral S-Stimulation!"

Now it was the D-D Girl's turn to feel a crushing constriction as Ceres tried to assert mental control over the youma's body. The two combatants fought their silent war above the others, each one struggling to triumph over the other before the other won out. Ceres bore down mentally, but the dark energy of Beryl that helped power the youmas was proving too much for young Ceres. Black spots began to appear before her eyes and she feared she was running out of time.

Saturn stepped in and swung her glaive, severing the tentacles that extended from the youma to the hole beneath the ground. She hoped it would have some affect on the youma, but there was none evident. They could all feel Vesta and Pallas were seconds away from acting. But Sailor Moon acted first. Once more the Moon Kaleidoscope appeared in her hand.

"Moon Gorgeous Meditation!" Sailor Moon called out, her pink hair trails blowing in the wind and pink energy firing from the barrel of her weapon. It lanced out and struck the D-D Girl square. The creature recoiled, its grip around Ceres breaking. It shrieked out more in rage than in pain, rage at having failed and lost its misanthropic grip on life. Then fissures appeared through the youma's body. It exploded into nothingness. Bereft of support, Ceres plummeted to the ground.

"Beautiful Incantation!" Pallas called out and caught her fellow senshi in a pair of soft telekinetic hands. Gently the woozy senshi was lowered to the snow.

"Wow, air never tasted so sweet!" Ceres gasped. They all leaned in, but Sailor Moon brought the Moon Kaleidoscope up.

"I'll fix you up," she offered. But Saturn intervened.

"I'LL help her, Sailor Moon," Saturn said firmly. "You need to conserve your energy." The pink princess started to protest.

"She is right, Maiden," she felt Helios caution her. "You must conserve your strength for the fight to come." Sailor Moon's jaw clenched. But as Saturn slipped into one of her healing trances and leached the injury away from Ceres, the Princess finally nodded her head.

"You all right?" Vesta asked, kneeling down next to Ceres as Saturn finished transmitting healing energy to her. "Good catch on that youma."

"Thanks," Ceres replied, eyeing Vesta. She wasn't really certain how to take praise from the adopted sibling she fought with most. But Vesta helped her to her feet without any sort of criticism. Pallas was in the background, beaming like a miniature sun. She glanced around and got a reassuring nod from the others. Sailor Moon seemed especially grateful.

"I don't think we have much more time to waste," Sailor Moon announced suddenly. She extended her hands and the others immediately knew what she wanted. The six teens linked hands and began concentrating on teleporting. But midway through the act, Pallas suddenly severed the connection. Everybody opened their eyes and looked to her.

"There!" Pallas exclaimed, pointing between Saturn and Juno.

The six senshi looked and saw the two remaining D-D Girls, hovering over the wasteland. They'd insinuated themselves between the senshi and the great plume in the distance. Though neither said a word, it was clear they meant to be a last obstacle to the senshi's advance.

"Looks like we've got a road block," Vesta rumbled menacingly.

"I'll take care of them," Sailor Moon replied quickly, producing the Moon Kaleidoscope once again. But Saturn held out her hand.

"No, Sailor Moon," Saturn said, earnestly but firmly. "You conserve your energy. We'll handle them."

"But!" Sailor Moon began.

"Princess," Vesta said, turning back to her with that intense manner she had that could be so intimidating, "there's five of us and only two of them. If you think they can beat those odds, then you don't have very much respect for us."

The words were like a slap across the face. Sailor Moon shivered with shock and surprise as her five senshi moved to confront the two youma. In her zeal to protect her friends from the fates she knew the elder senshi had suffered a thousand years ago, she had shown little respect for their considerable abilities. Yes, they'd suffered three close calls at the hands of the D-D Girls, but those were all single confrontations. As a group - - well, Sailor Moon wasn't sure SHE could take them on as a group. And she was more than a match for two D-D Girls. Perhaps there was wisdom in not acting in this instance.

"Make it quick, huh?" she called out. "We're running out of time."

"In the bag," Vesta called back, nodding with supreme confidence.

"Vortex Instigation!" Juno called out. A huge, whipping vortex of snow and wind sprang up around the combatants, limiting the battlefield and giving the D-D Girls no place to retreat.

"Fauna Assimilation," Vesta cried out, "eagle!" Vesta morphed into a golden eagle and launched up into the air. One of the youmas detached and the pair began swooping and slashing at each other in the air. The other youma turned and dove at Ceres and Pallas.

"Floral Stimulation!" Ceres shouted. The other youma seized up in mid-air, struggling to retain control against Ceres' attempt to usurp its will. It shot tentacles out and snared Ceres once more in its constricting grip.

"OK, Vesta! You've weakened it enough!" Saturn called out, her glaive up and pointing at them both. "Veer off!" When Vesta complied, Saturn acted. "Azrael's Slumber!"

Black energy began flowing from the D-D Girl into Saturn's glaive. It began to dance in mid-air like a puppet being buffeted by sharp, strong air currents. As more energy flowed into the glaive, the youma's movements became weaker and less controlled. It struggled to escape, but could not get away from the glaive's absorption. Finally the glow in its eyes died and the youma fell backwards, tumbling from the sky to land deep in the snow.

"Fauna Assimilation, elephant!" Vesta shouted. Changing in mid-air from an eagle to an elephant, she immediately plummeted to the ground and landed hard - - on top of the comatose D-D Girl. Juno and Saturn both grimaced with disgust.

"Pallas!" Ceres gasped. "I can't hold her!" Pallas nodded and pointed at the struggling D-D Girl.

"Fiery Incantation!" she shouted. And the D-D Girl spontaneously combusted. It screamed once in agony as fire quickly engulfed its body, then arced and slammed into the snow. A cloud of steam rose up from where it crashed from melting snow. When it dissipated, nothing was left but the charred remains of something that had never truly been alive.

After Saturn had stuck her glaive into the snow and allowed the dark energy to drain away, they came back to Sailor Moon.

"Nice work. They didn't have a chance," she nodded. "Hey, if it sounded like I was, you know, doubting you five - - I'm sorry about that. I was just - - worried about you all."

"It's all right, Princess," Pallas said. "We're all probably not used to people worrying about us."

"Yeah," Vesta nodded. "So let's go get this Beryl woman and get back home where it's warm."

"Amen," Ceres added.

Six pairs of hands joined. Six tiara's flared brightly. Six teen girls shouted in unison amid a cyclone of wind and snow and the spirit of a seventh looked on from within. And then they were gone.

When they materialized at the foot of an ice and snow encased ridge, some of the girls' bravado died away. The roughly square ice fortress where the plume rose from was immense. It towered sixty yards in the air and stood solidly, silently in front of them, taking no notice of their arrival. It was as if they were too trivial to be concerned with. The senshi looked around for some kind of guard or barrier, but there was none.

There was also no visible entrance. Nothing gave them the slightest hint that anything alive or dead existed here, save for the plume of dark gray smoke that continued to rise out of the top of the structure.

"So what do we do?" Ceres asked the others. "Knock?"

"Maybe we can teleport in," Vesta suggested.

"We don't know what's inside of this," Juno argued. "For all we know, we could teleport into a solid wall." She turned to Pallas. "Pallas, do you still sense the bad thoughts you felt earlier?"

Pallas nodded. "Bad thoughts are stronger now. The bad lady's in there." Pallas paused for a moment. "And she's not alone."

"Do you know how many are with her?"

"Maybe it's an army," Vesta said.

"No, only two," Pallas answered. Then she shivered, but not from the cold. "They're thinking bad thoughts, too. The thoughts make Pallas feel icky."

"Maybe I can get through," Saturn volunteered.

She cautiously approached the ice fortress, her glaive balanced in her two hands. When she was only two feet from the wall, her glaive swung back. With a single chopping motion, the blade buried itself in the ice. Fissures appeared, spider-webbing out from the impact. And then a huge chunk of ice, almost as big as the slight senshi herself, fell away and crumbled to the ground.

But more ice was behind it. Saturn turned and looked to Sailor Moon to see if her friend wanted her to continue.

"I can change into a burrowing animal," Vesta piped up. "Maybe dig my way in."

"Pallas could use her Fiery Incantation and melt our way in," offered Pallas.

"It would take too long," Sailor Moon scowled, shaking her head. "We've got to get in there now! The sun's really dim now!" Her brow knit as she weighed their options and the price of failure each had. "Maybe we'll have to try teleporting in. Maybe . . ."

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge ball of energy shot toward the group. It struck Sailor Moon in the lower back and swiftly carried her toward the ice fortress, enveloping her as it traveled. Before anyone in the group could react, the energy burst, with Sailor Moon, passed through the wall and was gone.

"Sailor Moon!" cried Saturn. She pressed against the wall of ice and snow, but it was as solid as it had been before. Frantically she turned to the other senshi. Each one was as shocked and dumbfounded as she felt.

For her part, Sailor Moon found herself roughly deposited on a cold floor of polished stone. The room had a sinister caste to it. Violet bursts illuminated the otherwise pitch blackness of the area she was in. Sailor Moon couldn't be certain if it was a small room or a large one. She couldn't be certain it was empty or teaming with people. She couldn't even be certain it was still in the arctic.

"Queen Beryl?" Sailor Moon called out. She looked around the darkness, searching for anything that might give her a clue to where she was or what might happen next. Her only comfort was feeling Helios in her mind, augmenting her power and bonding with her spirit. To her right, illumination came. Sailor Moon turned to it, on her guard.

"Sailor Moon," Beryl replied, the name rolling off of her tongue like an insult.

For all the stories she'd heard of Queen Beryl from her aunts and her parents, none of them prepared the teen for seeing Beryl in person. She lounged on an ornate throne, her feline figure draped like a coat across it. Her left hand supported her chin while her right draped over the armrest and into darkness. She wore a blue gown, daringly low cut and suggesting a figure that was lean and elegant. She was comely, despite her deathly pale complexion, but it was an unsettling beauty. Her eyes glowed red and her smile was cold and predatory. She wore her contempt for everyone and everything like a badge of honor. Red hair crowned her and completed the image of death by seduction. The red hair cascaded down her back like pooled blood.

Above and to the left of her left shoulder was a swirling mass of black energy. Sailor Moon didn't have to have the psychic ability of Pallas to feel the malevolence of the swirling energy. Just looking at it make her shiver. They both looked down on Sailor Moon from a raised platform.

"How kind of you to bring me your crystal," Beryl began, totally superior in her manner. "With it, I shall release my liege into the human world and plunge it into an eternal reign of chaos and destruction."

"Get bent," Sailor Moon replied, rising to her feet.

"You refuse to be reasonable?" Beryl scowled. "Very well. If taken it must, then taken it shall be."

A light came up on Beryl's right, illuminating what was there. Though Sailor Moon suspected what she would see, the sight was still enough to wrench a gasp of shock from her. For next to Beryl's throne, kneeling and kissing the queen's hand, was her father.

"A most interesting dilemma," Desdaemona said, the crimson entity suddenly standing to Sailor Moon's right and wearing that irritating smug expression, "wouldn't you say, Princess?"

Continued in Chapter 10


	10. Freedom Is Never Free

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 10: "Freedom Is Never Free"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K., from the original story by Naoko Takeuchi and the teleplay by Yoshiyuki Tomita

* * *

"Let him go!" Sailor Moon demanded. She received a sneer of contempt from Queen Beryl for her trouble. Endymion rose to his feet. He was towering over her again, like he had when she was a tot, and those old feelings of subservience came creeping back.

"Endymion," Beryl said with unconcealed disgust, "kill the Princess."

Leaping from the throne platform, his sword drawn, Endymion attacked. Sailor Moon backed up reflexively and barely parried his sword thrust with the Moon Kaleidoscope. He shoved and she stumbled back, then gave more ground. The Princess could see her father was being controlled, that his free will was gone. But though he was doing Beryl's bidding, he was doing it with all the skill and power he naturally possessed. Fencing was a skill Usa didn't possess. Her father had offered to teach her, but youthful indifference had led her to defer. Now she could use those skills.

"Well, I'll just have to settle this my way," Sailor Moon muttered. "Moon Gorgeous Meditation!"

The pink energy hit Endymion point blank and stopped him dead in his tracks. Bathed in the healing radiation, the future monarch of Crystal Tokyo doubled over, wracked with pain as pink and black energy fought for his body and his soul.

"A futile effort, Sailor Moon," Beryl said haughtily. "You lack the power to counteract the dark energy of my sovereign, Metallia, here in her strongest point."

To punctuate her boast, a blood-curdling scream of agony wrenched from her father's throat. Sailor Moon hesitated just for a moment, intimidated by what her father was enduring. With that, he broke free. Endymion slashed at Sailor Moon with his sword. The senshi dodged it, but was under attack again before she was prepared. Avoiding the downward slash of the blade threw her off balance and Sailor Moon tumbled to the cold stone floor. Her Moon Kaleidoscope skittered away along the polished surface.

She was about to scramble after it, but the shadow of her father looming over her stopped Sailor Moon. She looked up at him anxiously. Endymion held a black rose to his face.

"Sailor Moon," he said - - her own father said, coldly and mercilessly, "die."

The rose spun towards her. Sailor Moon tried to scramble away, but the flower struck her side. Instantly thorny tendrils sprang up from the rose and wove around her torso, binding her arms to her sides. Sailor Moon toppled and fell down again. And then pain coursed through her body as the rose emitted a charge of black energy. It was worse than being electrocuted. The black energy not only set her nerve endings on fire, but raked and twisted at her very being. It was like drowning in a pit of the harshest acid. The energy assaulted her mind as much as it did her body. The teen shrieked before she could think to contain herself. The torment lasted for hours, it seemed. Only when it ended did Sailor Moon realize that it had only been a few seconds.

Panting, gasping for breath, struggling for control over her body, Sailor Moon looked up into the dull, dilated eyes of her father. Before she could speak, another shock stormed through her. Sailor Moon's mind reeled. It felt like she was being cleaved from head to foot. She could barely feel her connection to Helios over the blistering agony. When it ended, she didn't notice that the tendrils from the black rose had disintegrated. All Sailor Moon could think of was to find a way to end this assault.

Able to offer no resistance when he bent over her, Sailor Moon was hoisted up into the air by Endymion's hand around her throat. It was no small feat, as the rabbit-eared princess was as tall as her father. The girl felt an urgent need to escape, but she had little strength to resist. The searing black energy had left her body numb and uncoordinated. Sailor Moon gurgled out something that might have been "Pop".

Once more the black energy flowed through her body. Vision, hearing, all senses shut down under the assault. All she could see, hear, think or feel was white-hot agony clutching her entire body. How did her mother endure this a thousand years ago? She had been three years younger than Usa was now and far less developed in her career as Sailor Moon.

"That's enough, Endymion," purred Beryl.

Sailor Moon was thrown to the floor like garbage and she didn't care. It was an end to the agonizing energy discharge. Casting around desperately as she lay prone on the floor, Sailor Moon spotted the Moon Kaleidoscope a few feet in front of her. With a quivering hand, she reached out for it, but it was too far. It was too far. Sailor Moon felt like she wanted to cry. But she knew she couldn't. Too much was at stake.

"Why do you persist?" Beryl asked, as if this were a gigantic waste of her time. The woman sighed. "Endymion, cut off her head."

The Moon Kaleidoscope remained just out of her reach. Feeling was coming back into her body. If she had just a few more seconds - - but a shadow appeared between her and the Moon Kaleidoscope. It had to be Endymion. She didn't have to see the sword raised to know it was there. She had to do something - - gain some time to regroup. But what? What card did she have left to play?

With speed born of desperation, Sailor Moon twisted, flinging her converted tiara into Endymion as she croaked out the power phrase. The energy disk struck her father square in the mid-section. His eyes bulged as he doubled over, then staggered back A strangled cry escaped from his throat.

"I'm sorry, Pop," Sailor Moon said softly. With some effort, she struggled to her knees.

Endymion was once again in agonizing turmoil as a war was fought for his soul. Sailor Moon knelt and watched her father as the warring energies threatened to tear him apart. She wanted to run to his side, but she was too weak and dizzy to even gain her feet. The senshi could only watch the struggle unfold before her eyes. Back and forth it went.

Finally, the dark energy won again.

"Sailor Moon!" Endymion growled, the guttural exclamation of a wounded beast. Furiously, he raised his sword up to deliver the killing blow.

"Pop! I'm not just Sailor Moon! I'm your daughter!" wailed Sailor Moon. "Can't you remember?"

The sword reached its apex.

"I've got to do it!" Sailor Moon thought.

Reaching within herself, Sailor Moon summoned her pink crystal. It emerged from her chest, hovering between her cupped hands. Without hesitating, Sailor Moon directed a full blast of pink energy directly from the crystal to Endymion.

The young warrior toppled over backwards, screaming in agony. His sword clattered to the floor beside him as he landed on his back, stunned. A black rose slipped from his lapel and onto the sword hilt.

Then, before Sailor Moon's elated eyes, it changed from black to red.

"Pop?" Sailor Moon inquired cautiously, scrambling on her knees to his side. Her pink hair trails spilled across his chest. Endymion looked up at her. She didn't see recognition, but she also didn't see the hypnotic control of black energy.

"How is it possible?" gasped Beryl.

"Who are you?" Endymion asked, dazed and confused. "I don't recognize you - - but I feel I know you."

"You haven't met me yet," Sailor Moon said, grinning so widely that her tears trickled down her jaw line. "I'm your daughter."

"Then I did find her," Endymion smiled as Sailor Moon helped him to a sitting position. "You look a lot like her. You have to be her daughter."

"Yeah, Pop," Sailor Moon said, beaming through her tears. "You found her. And you and her lived happily ever after."

"I will not TOLERATE THIS!" roared Queen Beryl. Using her dark energy, she fashioned pointed spears out of the onyx rock around her throne and launched them at the huddled pair.

Sensing as much as hearing it, Endymion pivoted. As his left hand shielded Sailor Moon, his right threw a rose in Beryl's direction. Then he stiffened and fell against the young Princess. The rose shot across the room like a bullet and lodged stem first between Beryl's breasts. She stared down incomprehensibly at the rose impaling her as her energy swiftly drained from her form.

She wasn't alone.

"Pop!" Sailor Moon shrieked when she saw the onyx stone lodged in her father's back. Endymion quickly slipped to the floor. As she bent over him, he tried to reach up to her with a shaking hand.

"Wish I could have seen," Endymion whispered hoarsely.

"Pop, don't talk! I'll help you!" Sailor Moon wailed.

She brought the crystal up again to heal him. But when she looked down at him, she saw it was too late.

"P-P-Pop?" Sailor Moon stammered, tears flowing like rivers. "You can't die. You didn't give me a chance to save you."

And as the pink-haired senshi wept over the body of her father's younger self, Queen Beryl passed down into the lower chambers of the complex through the floor, while her body was spider-webbed with fissures emanating from the stem of Endymion's rose.

With her sobs echoing through the now empty chamber, Sailor Moon didn't notice the presence next to her at first. Eventually she sensed it, though. The senshi looked up and found Desdaemona standing, watching her with some amusement.

"You seem upset," the creature commented. "Didn't things go as you hoped, Princess?"

"Go away," Sailor Moon sobbed bitterly. "Go away and leave me alone!"

"But your test isn't finished."

"TO HELL WITH YOUR TEST!" Sailor Moon bellowed. "MY POP IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"Me?" Desdaemona mocked. "I'm not the one who failed to protect him."

"DAMN YOU!" Sailor Moon roared. "I HATE YOU!" and she went back to sobbing on the body of her father. "Hate you . . ."

"Why?" Desdaemona inquired. "Because I point out truths you find inconvenient?"

"Because my father is dead!" Sailor Moon snarled. "Because my friends would have died, too, if I hadn't saved them! And because none of it means a thing to you! You'd snuff out seven human lives just for your stupid tests and it wouldn't mean a thing to you!"

"Well," Desdaemona replied calmly, her smooth red scalp gleaming in the low light, "hating me is your choice to make. But are you truly considering allowing the Earth and all its inhabitants to fall to the dark energy of Metallia and her vessel so you may indulge your feelings of sorrow? Do their lives mean nothing to you?"

"That's right," Sailor Moon replied with a soft voice hoarse with emotion. "Beryl merges with Metallia. I have to face her down."

Struggling to her feet, Sailor Moon turned her back to Desdaemona. She concentrated for a moment. Her Sailor Moon guise faded and Helios appeared next to her.

"Helios," Usa said, "I have to get to Beryl before she destroys everything. Could you fly me there?"

"Maiden, you have expended far too much energy," Helios cautioned her.

"Can't be helped," Usa replied. Still he hesitated. "I'll walk if I have to."

"All right," Helios relented. "I will convey you there."

"Thanks," she said and leaned in, kissing his cheek.

Helios turned to Desdaemona. "We will have words when this is done," he told her.

"I am at your disposal, Dream Guardian," the red creature replied with amusement.

Helios changed into his Pegasus form. With Usa astride him, he winged up into the air and out through the opening in the top of the fortress. Banking, they flew toward Beryl. She wasn't difficult to spot, as she now towered fifty feet in the air.

"Look!" Pallas cried, pointing up into the air. The senshi were still outside the fortress. "It's the Princess and Prince Horsie-Man!"

"We have to follow them!" Saturn gasped urgently.

"Through all this snow?" Ceres asked. "We'll never keep up with them!"

"Never tried this before. Hope I can pull it off," Vesta said. "Fauna Combination - Pegasus Elephant!"

The senshi instantly morphed into a replica of Helios's equine form. However, this form was as huge as an African elephant. Immediately the enormous winged equine knelt down.

"Get on my back! We don't have time to waste!" barked Vesta. The other four senshi clamored onto the equine's back as quickly as they could.

Helios and Usa banked into view of Queen Beryl, then landed. Beryl was even more intimidating close up. Her merger with Metallia had caused her skin to mutate to a pale green and her sinister beauty to change to an almost vampire-like look. She was also now a fifty foot giantess, her arms outstretched and radiating black energy to the sun. Sunspots had nearly clouded the glowing orb black. As Usa and Helios merged once more so she could become Sailor Moon again, Beryl looked down upon them. She wasn't happy.

"Still you persist in opposing me, little would-be Princess?" Beryl sneered and the canyons of ice in the Arctic Circle shook from the vibrations.

"I have to. No one else can," Sailor Moon replied. "It's the obligation of those with power to protect those without. My mother and father taught me that."

"And did your mother and father teach you how to die?" Beryl asked.

Black energy poured from Beryl's hands, aimed directly at Sailor Moon. But Sailor Moon countered by drawing her crystal out once again. Pink energy radiated out and met the black energy midway. The two radiant forces struck and neutralized each other.

"Well met," Beryl chuckled. "But you haven't matured yet, girl! You play at being a princess, but you're one in name only! The power of your crystal hasn't come to full bloom just yet! You haven't the strength to oppose me!"

"Yeah?" Sailor Moon replied through clenched teeth. "Just watch me!"

The pink crystal pulsed and sent a burst of energy at Beryl. The Queen barely dissipated it, her demeanor shocked. Renewing her efforts, Beryl sent more of Metallia's black energy funneling down at Sailor Moon. However, her field held and neutralized the energy as it struck. It was difficult, that she could tell. Sailor Moon was under considerable duress holding the destructive power back.

But she wasn't crumbling. She wasn't buckling. If anything, the teen seemed to be even more determined than ever. And with that, her appearance morphed. Her sailor uniform became a flowing white off the shoulder gown with a brocade bodice. Rabbit ear barrettes appeared in her hair, with a string of pearls extending across her hair between the right three barrettes and the left three.

"So, there is a Princess in the little girl after all!" Beryl called out. And she poured more black energy down on Princess Usagi.

"I'm not the only one fighting you!" Princess Usagi yelled back. "Everyone on Earth is fighting you! Everyone on Earth is behind me! I will not let you destroy them and all they have!"

"You'll die is what you'll do!"

"If I have to!"

The dimmed skies of the Arctic were lit up by the display. The sizzle of energy reacting with energy echoed over the wasteland. All life had long since fled this area. No one was there to witness the gigantic struggle between them, save a nude, red-skinned woman with glowing eyes. She watched the display with keen interest, but with no favor for either combatant. The result was the important thing to her, not the victor.

Effects of the discharge of black energy caused Beryl's red hair to flow back from her and her skirt to billow. Both items were caught in the air currents disturbed by her mighty display. Similarly, Princess Usagi's skirt billowed and her pink trails blew behind her. Neither combatant showed any sign of weakening, nor any sign of giving in.

"There they are!" Saturn cried, pointing. She and the others sat astride Vesta's massive back as the huge winged equine came over the horizon.

"That woman! Is she Queen Beryl?" Juno asked out loud. "She has to be fifty feet tall!"

"That pink energy down there!" Ceres said. "It's got to be Sailor Moon!"

"Hurry!"Saturn exclaimed. "We have to help her!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Vesta shouted. "The way they're kicking up the air currents, it's all I can do to stay airborne!"

Princess Usagi struggled to maintain her assault on Beryl's black energy. There seemed to be no limit to what Beryl could throw at her. But there was a limit to what she could generate and Usa could feel the strain now. Her chest was growing tight and her limbs were aching.

And the black energy was beginning to draw closer.

"Helios!" Usa thought. "Can you give me anymore?"

"Alas, Maiden, I cannot," she felt him reply. "We are at our limit."

"But it's not enough! Mom beat her! Why can't I?"

"Perhaps if you had not expended some of your power rescuing your friends from the attacks of the D-D Girls . . ."

"I had to do that!" Usa mentally screamed. "What was I going to do, stand there and let them die?"

"No one questions your good intent, Maiden," she felt Helios respond. "But every act comes with a price."

Princess Usagi looked up at the black energy. It was getting closer. And she could feel her strength waning.

Continued in Chapter 11


	11. The Devil You Know

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 11: "The Devil You Know"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K., from the original story by Naoko Takeuchi and the teleplay by Yoshiyuki Tomita

The dark energy was coming nearer. As Princess Usagi stood on the icy ridge, her pink crystal before her and her pink hair trails fluttering behind her, she could feel her strength begin to wane. The prospect of the battle went two ways, neither of which were desirable: Either she surrendered and was destroyed by Metallia's dark energy, leaving Beryl free to despoil the Earth, or she fought on until she pushed herself past her limits and died, leaving Beryl free to despoil the Earth. The third option was to win, but that option was becoming less and less likely.

"A dire situation, Princess," Usagi heard Desdaemona's voice say over her left shoulder. Wonderful. As if things weren't bad enough. "How will you fare?"

"What do you care?" muttered Usagi as she valiantly fought to hold out and hope that Beryl reached her limit before Usagi reached hers.

"I care greatly," Desdaemona responded. "This is as fascinating a tableau as I have witnessed in quite some time."

"We're just lab animals to you," Usagi snapped bitterly. The black energy grew closer.

"Maiden," she heard Helios say. "Do not let her anger you."

"I do nothing, Dream Guardian, save point out fact," Desdaemona said. "It is true that I have no emotional attachment to these participants, on either side. The Princess seems to consider that sinful, though I challenge her to assert that she has anything more than charitable benevolence for any insect or lower animal on her world."

"I don't go out and pit animals against each other for sport, either!" Usagi growled. The black energy drew closer.

"This is not sport, Princess. Again you misinterpret my intentions," Desdaemona responded. "I am merely curious to see how you will react to situations, given your past and given your possible futures. You sought to protect your friends, a choice that now has potentially doomed your world and everyone on it. What will you do?"

"And all of those lives mean nothing to you?" Usagi railed, pink hair blowing into her face.

"No," Desdaemona replied simply.

"Damn you!" spat Usagi.

Her pink crystal dimmed. And the black energy enveloped her. Instantly Helios was driven from her form, screaming in agony. He landed on the ice near Desdaemona, took a moment to regain his senses, then looked up. Usa was held rigidly in the grip of the black energy. Beryl was levitating her into the air, up to eye level, to gloat. Helios staggered to his feet and confronted Desdaemona.

"End this!" he demanded. She turned her red face to him.

"But my questions are not yet answered," she replied.

"To what end, Desdaemona?" Helios argued. "What will her destruction accomplish?"

"A different future, for one thing," the scarlet entity told him. "Or perhaps, depending on what she does next, the one I have foreseen."

"And at what cost does your precious answers come?" Helios fumed. "Release her! See how the future unfolds without your proactive hand! Time matters not to one such as you!"

"I prefer this way," Desdaemona replied. Then she looked Helios deeply in the eye. "Beware of emotional attachments to lesser beings, Dream Guardian. They can be quite the pitfall."

"You make one assumption, Desdaemona," Helios snapped back and changed into Pegasus. "That she is a lesser being." And off the winged horse flew.

"Do you feel it, little would-be Princess?" Beryl gloated at the tiny figure she held aloft in a field of black energy. Usa strained to move, but she was held tight, as if pressed into a coffin of razor blades. Every attempt at movement brought pain and to stop was to surrender to agony. "Do you feel what it means to defy me and my master? Do you feel everything you are and everything you had, everything you've accomplished, slipping away? How long should I keep you teetering on the brink of death?"

Then she saw Beryl's hand move, swing down wildly. Helios was there, avoiding the slash of Beryl's hand, sweeping up to attack. He dived in, his crystal horn gleaming as it sought to pierce Beryl. But she caught the equine with a blast of dark energy and Helios plummeted from sight.

"NO!" Usa thought. "Stop! Don't hurt him!"

"Silly little girl!" Beryl snarled. "Better you should worry about your own fate!"

Usa strained against the energy holding her, but it was useless. She had not the strength to pull free nor the energy to pry herself loose. She would die, here. More importantly, everything and everyone else would die as well: Helios, Hotaru, the Asteroids, and her future in Crystal Tokyo. She'd failed - - failed everyone.

"You wish to stop her, don't you?" asked a voice. Usa didn't recognize the voice right off, but knew it sent chills down her spine. It wasn't Beryl and it wasn't Desdaemona, but who else could it be? "She will destroy everything you hold dear. She will lay waste to your world. She has already slain your father. She will end the life of the man you love and the friends you fought so hard to save. She will end your life. And there is only one way to stop her."

"What?" Usa asked desperately.

"Embrace me," the voice said. It seemed so familiar, but Usa couldn't . . .

Metallia. It was Metallia. And at once Usa had a plan. If she could take Metallia into herself and control her, smother her with righteous virtue, perhaps she could save everyone and everything. And if Metallia proved too much for her and she died, maybe she could take Metallia with her.

Beryl's eyes widened in surprise when she sensed the betrayal by her sovereign. Then her surprise rose to shock when she felt a crystal horn pierce her chest. Beryl looked down and saw Helios, his crystal horn buried in her down to his forehead. The black energy flowed from Beryl and into Usa. Instantly fissures spread out from the crystal horn and up along Beryl's body.

"No!" Beryl shrieked. "Metallia, my sovereign! I did everything you asked! I sacrificed everything for you! You can't abandon me!"

The fissures grew wide enough to allow Beryl's crystal energy to escape. Beryl flung back her head and screamed in agony while the fissures spread across her body until it was consumed. Freed of her, Helios turned to Usa even as the Asteroid Senshi arrived.

The girl's white gown was now black. Usa was smiling, but it was not a mirthful smile. She looked up at them. Her red eyes were now onyx hues surrounding deep black pupils.

"She actually thought she could contain me," Usa said in a distorted, unearthly voice. "She forgot the flaw in her, the stain on her pristine soul. She forgot the weakness that Wise Man exploited, the weakness that allowed me to assert my dominance over her." Usa stretched out her arms, her hands pulsating with dark energy. "And she forgot the parable of Sailor Galaxia and repeated her folly. Oh, this body has so much potential. So much more than Beryl. I can make this body into an instrument of death the like that Beryl could never hope to achieve."

"The bad thoughts!" Pallas cried to the others, pointing at Usa. "The bad thoughts have taken over The Princess!"

Without another word, Saturn pushed off of the Vesta-Pegasus and leaped down to Usa. The corrupted princess whirled on her, hands glowing with dark energy, ready to defend herself against Saturn's glaive or any of her attacks. But the moment Saturn's purple boots touched the ice, she dropped her glaive and held her hands out.

"Usa?" Saturn said plaintively. "It's me, Hotaru. Do you recognize me?"

"You seek someone who no longer exists," Usa replied, her brow arched and a superior disdain dancing in her features.

"No, don't say that!" Saturn cried, walking toward Usa with her hands still outstretched. "I couldn't bear the thought of living my life without my best friend! Usa, you mean so much to me! Please tell me you're still in there! Please give me some sign!"

"What would you have me do?" Usa asked mockingly as Saturn drew nearer. "Shall I sit on the end of your bed and exchange hopes and dreams, as we did in the past? Shall I pat your head and tell you once more that you're not a monster and a pariah, that you've finally found a life where you can excel? You long for a past that's gone, girl. Your friend is gone and with it your wonderful future."

"No!" Saturn wailed.

"And I think I'll save your destruction until last," Usa grinned, her onyx eyes sucking the very hope from her friend, "just to enjoy your suffering."

Saturn lunged. Startled, Usa pulled back, but she was too slow. Saturn's tiny hands clapped onto either side of Usa's head. Violet energy surrounded her hands. Usa threw back her head and silently screamed out. In a mirror image motion, Saturn did the same. As the others watched and Vesta transformed back into human form, Usa and Saturn stood locked in place, mirror images of each other.

"What's she doing?" Vesta wondered openly.

"She's trying to heal the Princess," Pallas replied distantly, as if she was tuned into Saturn's mind. She probably was. "She's trying to make the bad thoughts go away."

"Can she do it?" Ceres asked.

"Let's hope so," Juno answered. "I don't want to take The Princess on."

Pegasus landed near them and looked on. Several of the Asteroids noticed.

"Isn't there anything you can do to help her?" Ceres asked.

"I fear Saturn's power is too different from my own," the equine responded, its eyes moist and in pain. "I would probably only get in her way."

"Can she do it?" Pallas asked him.

"Be ready," the Pegasus said, morphing back into Helios, "in case she cannot."

Stress lines were beginning to form on Saturn's face, under her eyes and around her mouth. Her limbs began to quiver. Several of the Asteroids recalled the heart condition Saturn had and worried that she might falter should she push herself too far. Yet, what other choice did she have? The Princess was their charge, to guard with their lives if necessary. And Usa was their friend, Hotaru's most of all. She had risked for them. Could they do no less for her?

Dark energy began to form around the hands of Usa, held at her sides by the rigid tension induced by Saturn's healing assault. The energy built and grew. Pallas saw it and shouted out a warning that went unheeded. The energy gained critical mass and then exploded out into Saturn's mid-section. The senshi was lifted up into the air and flung away, over the watching senshi. Saturn landed hard, slid some along the ice, then came to a stop. She didn't move. Usa was reeling herself. Her hand went to her head to steady it. Her legs threatened to buckle underneath her.

"Quick, while she's dizzy! Hit her hard!" Vesta shouted. "Fauna Combination - - polar bear cheetah!"

Bounding forward at a speed unheard of for the normally lumbering bear, Vesta got within inches of Usa. She launched herself up and head-butted her Princess in the stomach. Usa staggered back several steps, then tumbled to the ice. Vesta was on her in a flash, pinning her down with superior weight and delivering a backhand blow, so as to protect her from the bear's long claws, to Usa's head. Though reeling, Usa was able to summon enough energy and thrust Vesta away.

"Vortex Instigation!" Juno shouted, hoping to further batter The Princess into unconsciousness. With Vesta clear, Usa was swallowed up in a cyclone of snow and wind, spinning and tumbling in the air as the vortex tossed her. She was able to summon black energy, but the vortex left her too disoriented to effectively use it.

Outside the vortex, the other senshi watched and waited. Due to the cold, Ceres' powers were useless. She knelt next to Saturn and watched the events warily. Things had already gone badly, and not just for Usa. Though Ceres was no doctor, she didn't hold out much hope for the battered shell that had only moments ago had been Sailor Saturn. Dread began to build in her chest. Vesta, still in polar bear form, crouched and waited near Pallas. If Usa was able to break out of Juno's vortex, she would use her speed to press the attack again. Pallas had her hands to her temples. She was using her inborn telepathy to try to contact Usa's mind, submerged in the whirlpool of black that was Metallia. The young teen scowled as her mind tried to sift through the repellent Metallia to her friend beneath.

"Keep it going, Juno!" Vesta growled. "We're getting to her!"

"I will!" Juno responded. Ceres could see her sister meant it. She could see the reborn dedication to the mission of using their abilities in service of the Royal Family and the vision that Queen Serenity espoused and their friend Usa championed. The regrets might still be there, but the doubts were gone. Ceres spirits lifted slightly. It was good to have her back.

"Princess?" Pallas thought-cast, sensing Usa's core amid the cesspool of Metallia, but not knowing where exactly she was. "Find the light, Princess! Find the light Pallas is trying to send to you! Pallas and her sisters will help you! Just find her light!"

Black-tinted lightning began to erupt from the vortex. It popped and sizzled, exploded within the frozen storm. None of the surviving senshi liked the looks of it.

"Juno?" Vesta called out to her sister.

"I'm trying, Vesta!" Juno yelled anxiously. "She's too strong! I'm not sure I can contain her much longer! Pallas, are you trying to get through to her?"

Vesta looked around and saw Pallas concentrating hard. The energy within the vortex grew stronger and Vesta swung her attention back to it.

"Enough of this!" roared Usa.

Dark energy exploded outward, sundering the vortex and spraying snow and ice in all directions. The shockwave fanned out from the Princess in all directions. Vesta and Pallas were bowled over, battered and pummeled by the force. Juno was flung backward, careening wildly as the force lifted her up and shot her across the icy terrain. Ceres was shoved over Saturn's limp form and skidded across the ice. And when the dark energy behind the shock wave touched them, that was when agony really greeted them. When the discharge finally dissipated, Usa fell to her knees on the ice, quivering with exertion, her "rabbit ears" frazzled and her hair trails splayed behind her. Panting heavily, she looked up. The bodies of her friends were scattered across the landscape. Broken and bleeding, they all lay motionless before her.

Only Helios stood his ground, seemingly unaffected. He began toward her at a determined pace.

"Don't think," Usa gasped, an aura of black energy glowing faintly around her, "that I'm beaten." Then she smiled with wicked humor, a contemptuous glint in her onyx eyes.

"I cannot allow this to continue," Helios said and began to walk toward the bowed, possessed princess.

Usa rose to her feet. It was clear that she had been taxed by both Saturn and by the Asteroids, but Metallia was still in control and she still possessed a good deal of power. Undaunted, Helios continued toward her.

"You can't hope to defeat me," Usa said, leering confidently at Helios as he approached. Unfazed, Helios continued toward her.

"I can," he replied. "I am linked to her, linked by our hearts, by our minds, and by our souls. It is a link I still feel, a link that you cannot hope to sunder. Though you may obscure the path to that link with your dark energy, that link is there. I will find it and I will use it."

"You'll die in the process," Usa sneered.

"Perhaps," Helios proclaimed, now just a few feet from her. "If it frees the woman I love from your corruption, I give my life without hesitation."

He reached out for her. Dark energy flared around Usa's hands and she raised them to fire. But Helios seized those hands around the wrists. He took a full blast of dark energy head on, but he didn't let go. Metallia, through Usa's eyes, stared in amazement, for light from the crystal horn protruding from Helios had neutralized the blast. Her eyes darted around, a rat suddenly seeking escape from a trap. She noticed energy gathering in the hands of the Dream Guardian.

"Not so easily, Helios!" Usa snapped. Her entire body was encompassed by dark energy, covering her like a force field, crackling and spitting in the frigid air.

But a field of rainbow energy sprang up around Helios, protecting him from the effects of her dark field. The two auras collided, throwing sparks and casting loud sizzling sounds across the barren landscape. So taxed was Metallia that the sunspots around the sun began to dissipate and rays of sunlight peeked down on the scene. The ripples of displaced air from the clashing energy sent Usa's gown and hair trails billowing behind her. The long white hair and loose tunic of Helios similarly rippled and blew. They were the eye of a tornado, fanning out across the arctic, blowing snow and the remains of friends and combatants.

"I will kill you, Dream Guardian!" Usa snarled with Metallia's words. She stared right into his eyes.

Helios said nothing. He only stared back with his pale blue eyes, determination written in them. The aura's flared more brilliantly, reaching higher into the sky.

"I will utterly destroy you!" Usa continued to howl.

Helios said nothing.

"I will reduce your bones to microscopic ash!" she shrieked. "Nothing will remain of you and no one will find a trace to bury!"

And with a gigantic clap of thunder that rolled over the frozen arctic and rattled the drifted snow and centuries frozen ice, the two auras flowered until nothing else could be seen.

When Usa regained consciousness, she found herself laying on her back. Her limbs were cold and white. A howling wind had blown snow onto her. Pressing herself to move, she pushed up into a sitting position. All around her was empty white. There were several mounds covered with snow, mounds that might be bodies. Her arms wrapped around her torso, for strapless gowns were hardly protective clothing against the ravages of sub-zero temperatures.

The last think she remembered was struggling in the darkness of Metallia, drowning in her corruption. She'd tried to contain Metallia and failed. Her failure had led to Metallia making her a bigger menace than Beryl had ever been. If not for the shining white light of . . .

"Helios," Usa whispered.

She looked around frantically. There, a few feet from her, Helios lay partially covered over in snow. With mounting fear, Usa scrambled over to him. He lay prone in the snow, his eyes closed, his pale skin paler than usual.

"Helios!" she cried, feeling his chest and face.

The skin was cold to the touch. She pressed her hand to his neck, but no life throbbed. Tears poured down her cheeks as the young princess's face twisted in mounting anguish. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged. She struggled to come to grips with what lay before her, the awful realization of what Helios had done and why.

Finally, the young princess bent down, pressed her face to the cold, unmoving chest of her love, and cried. And she prayed that some avenging god would swoop down and destroy her, so she wouldn't have to endure one more moment of this hell.

Concluded in Chapter 12


	12. Our Weakest Moments

"COMING OF AGE"

Chapter 12: "Our Weakest Moments"

A Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

In the freezing wastelands of the Arctic Circle, a princess wept over her fallen champion. The cold bit into her exposed flesh, threatening to drain her life away and at that moment she didn't care a lick. Even death would be preferable to the immense sorrow she felt.

"Not how you expected it to turn out, was it Princess?" Desdaemona said as she stood next to the kneeling, weeping girl. Though bereft of clothing, the frightful cold didn't seem to affect her.

"Go away," Usa sobbed pitifully. She didn't even look up.

"You expended precious energy to save your friends," Desdaemona observed, "risking the safety of all who inhabit this planet. And in the end, the millions were saved anyway - - and your friends still died. An interesting paradox, wouldn't you say?"

"Go away!" Usa cried, rising up from her place against the cold, dead chest of Helios to look up at her tormentor with anger and scorn. "Go away and leave me in peace! Haven't your stupid questions been answered yet? What more do you want from me?"

"I wish nothing of you, Princess," the red being replied calmly. "Indeed, I have learned a great deal from what has happened here." She leaned in slightly, giving Usa that almost mocking smirk of hers. "Have you?"

"I've learned the cruelty of some people knows no bounds," Usa answered. She closed her eyes because they stung her, and to shut out the countenance of Desdaemona before it drove her mad.

"You can save him, you know," Desdaemona offered neutrally.

"How?" Usa gasped desperately.

"You know how," was Desdaemona's reply.

Usa stopped, momentarily daunted by the prospect. To use her crystal to resurrect the dead? She didn't know if she had THAT much power. She did know, though, that succeed or fail it would mean her life. Then resolution filled her. Helios had faced the same question and done it for her without reservation. Could she look herself in the eye if she didn't do the same for him?

"But," Usa stammered, "how can my crystal work if Helios is dead? Doesn't he have to merge with me . . .?"

"Your exposure to Metallia's energy has removed the block on your crystal," Desdaemona explained. "You are free to use your natural born energy - - as you see fit."

Desdaemona watched the girl intently to see what she would do next. The pink crystal emerged from Usa's chest, cupped on either side by dainty hands.

"My Lady, hold," came a voice from behind. Surprised, Usa whirled and turned to the sound.

"PUU!" Usa gasped, seeing the silent senshi Sailor Pluto tower over her, much as she had long ago. The woman knelt down and the Princess dived for her, squeezing herself to the familiar frame.

"Forgive me for only now coming to you, My Lady," Pluto said, returning the hug with a degree of emotion rarely seen in the somber woman. "I was," and she glanced at Desdaemona, "prevented from coming to you sooner. And I have been occupied repairing the damage to the time stream done by this being."

Usa pulled back, horrified. "I-I thought this was some elaborate illusion. Some drama she dreamed up, just with real casualties. T-This is . . .?"

"Earth, 1994," Pluto nodded. "You have been placed in your mother's footsteps, and the natural differences in your actions and reactions from hers has sent the time stream into chaos." Usa looked down, the weight of consequence upon her. But Pluto forced her to look up. "It is not your fault, My Lady. You could not be expected to act as your mother acted. You are two different people. You are not a clone of your mother, but a synthesis of your mother and father, with different genes and different experiences from her." Pluto lightly stroked some pink hair from the girl's eyes. "And, if you recall, your mother, and your father and the senshi would have died beating Beryl, were if not for the simple last wish of a dying woman to return everything to what it had been."

"And that's what I have to do," Usa said, turning back to the body of Helios. She extended the pink crystal, but stopped when Pluto's free hand closed around her wrist.

"Your sacrifice is not necessary, My Lady," Pluto told her. "It is within my power to return everything to what it had been."

"Can you do that," Usa asked, "safely?"

Pluto's features clouded slightly. "It - - may - - tax me to my limits, My Lady. I admit that, for I do not wish to lie to one such as you. But that is, after all, my place and my mission in this world. Who better . . .?"

"LET ME HELP!" Usa begged, clutching desperately at Pluto. "Please, Puu, let me help! Use some of my energy! Use it all! I don't care! Puu, please! I have to be part of the solution! Please, Puu, after everything I screwed up, please!"

A steadying hand came up and grasped Usa's upper arm.

"As you command, My Lady," Pluto smiled, proud and heartened by Usa's reaction. She stood up and gently pulled the Princess to her feet. "Together we shall return that which has been undone. The gods willing, our power shall be enough. Grasp my staff, My Lady."

Usa was about to. Then she looked warily at Desdaemona.

"I shall do nothing to interfere, Princess," Desdaemona said. "I have seen all I wish to see." And with that, she faded away. Usa grasped the staff.

"Clear your mind, My Lady," Pluto instructed softly. "I will do what must be done. You need only let your crystal's energy flow into the staff."

Usa did as she was instructed. The world dropped away and the teen was aware of just her and the brilliant energy that glowed in her chest like a pink sun. A relaxation of her chest and shoulders gave her the mental picture of a damn opening and water flooding out. Fear was not in the equation. She trusted Sailor Pluto, believed in her and her ability to make this right. She would do it. She would . . .

"My Lady," Pluto said gently, touching her shoulder. Usa's eyes snapped open and she was back in the Royal Chambers in the palace.

"Is everything back?" Usa asked.

"All is well again. Thanks in no small part to you," Pluto smiled warmly, "My Lady."

Usa dived at the towering senshi and hugged her until she threatened to break bones. At last she pulled away, looking up gratefully at Pluto. The door opened. She turned and found Helios there.

"Helios!" she half-sobbed and lunged at him. The Dream Guardian caught her and returned her hug with as much passion as she gave him. "Oh, Helios, you are not going to believe what just happened!"

"But I shall, Maiden," he said. "For I remember every moment."

Usa pulled back from him in shock and dismay.

* * *

When Cere entered the hover car port in the back of the palace, she found her Aunt Pilar with one of the palace drivers, loading her bags into the vehicle. The teen had come straight here after hearing from Hino-Sensei that King Endymion had ruled her to be a citizen of Japan and not subject to Brasilian laws while she was in Japan.

Her eyes narrowed. Hino-Sensei had told her a lot of things.

"Cerese!" Pilar cried. "Don't you worry! I'll get this straightened out! I have friends in the government! They won't . . .!"

"Aunt Pilar, I'm not going back with you," Cere said. "If you can't respect the decision of the government, at least respect mine."

"Nonsense! You belong back in your native land!" Pilar maintained. "And I'm going to see to it . . .!"

"I know about the trust fund," Cere said coldly. Pilar was thrown off stride for a moment.

"That," she began, "has nothing to do with it."

Cere stared at her with contempt.

"Cerese, I'm trying to do what's best for you!" Pilar maintained.

The glare she got back was eerily reminiscent of the ones Pilar recalled getting from her sister, after past confrontations.

"Cerese, if you'll only believe me!" Pilar howled.

"If I give you the trust fund, will you leave me alone?" Cere scowled. Pilar didn't respond immediately and Cere could see she was torn. "I KNEW IT! It's just about the money!"

"Cerese!" Pilar pleaded. "OK, I admit I need the money! It's - - I'm - - not as young - - as I used to be - - and - - it's harder and harder to-to maintain a lifestyle . . ."

"I'm supposed to feel sorry for you when all I am to you is a winning lottery ticket?" Cere roared.

"That's not right at all!" Pilar maintained. "I had every intention of-of trying to connect with you! You're - - the closest thing I have to-to blood family. I've got some aunts and uncles that I've never had very much contact with. They - - don't think very much of me."

"Can't imagine why," Cere scowled.

"I know you don't think very much of me, either," Pilar mumbled, her lower lip quivering. "I know it's my fault. I just - - wasn't ready. That is the truth. It was never because of you. I couldn't do it." She bowed her head. "I let you down. I just knew I couldn't give you what you needed then. And now I just thought - - that I could give you - - try to give you what you need - - and you could give me - - what I need."

"Family love isn't a commodity," Cere replied.

"Yes it is, Chica," Pilar answered with a depth of pain unguessed by the teen. "It's just that very few people get face value for it."

Cere hardened. "Good-bye, Aunt Pilar."

Pilar turned to get into the hover car.

"I'm sorry, Cerese," Pilar said, lingering at the hatch.

"That's nice," Cere replied coldly.

She hesitated at the vehicle. "I don't suppose - - you could see your way fit . . .?"

"No," Cere replied and walked out.

Pilar sighed. "Another bridge burned," she whispered with regret. The driver waited as she hovered in the entrance to the vehicle. "Maybe I can try Conchata in Rio."

Pilar climbed into the hover car and closed the door. The vehicle sped away to the Crystal Tokyo Intercontinental Rocket Port.

Jun and Palla-Palla turned when Cere entered their quarters. They could see things hadn't gone well.

"Rough?" Jun asked. Cere walked over to a sofa and sat down.

"Nothing being with my family won't cure," Cere replied.

Palla-Palla walked over, sat down next to Cere and put her arms around her sister. Cere returned the gesture silently, but gratefully.

* * *

Princess Usagi sat alone in her room, in front of her computer station. The display was a historical biography of Sailor Galaxia, assembled from anecdotal testimony provided by Queen Kakyuu of a far distant star and from Usa's own mother. The picture and text remained, waiting for the user to scroll down.

But the young princess's thoughts were elsewhere. The picture and text were forgotten, lost amid brooding thoughts. Only when she heard the door to her room hiss open and shut did she stir. Usa turned around and found Diana looking at her. Behind the gray cat was Helios.

"I passed him through, My Lady," Diana said, anticipating the question. The cat seemed visibly upset and tread cautiously. "I felt he might be able to raise your spirits - - where I've been unable to."

Usa dangled her hand near the floor, wiggling her fingers. Diana walked up and received a head scratch in her favorite spot.

"Not for lack of trying, Diana," Usa whispered. Diana arched her back in response to the scratch.

"No one has seen you since we returned from D-Point, Maiden," Helios ventured. "The palace is quite concerned. And I am quite beyond that point."

"Sorry," Usa murmured. "I just - - didn't know how to face anyone - - after what happened . . ."

"None of them recall what happened, Maiden," Helios assured her. "Only you and I - - and Sailor Pluto, I imagine, retain our memories of what occurred."

"I can't decide if that's a break for them," Usa whispered solemnly, "or me."

"You must not begin to doubt your ability, Maiden."

"Helios, I failed," Usa replied. "I was put in a spot where everything and everyone depended on me - - and I failed."

"You stopped Metallia and saved the Earth," Helios said.

"No, YOU saved the Earth," Usa countered, "from me."

"Maiden," Helios sighed, "you were faced with a situation in which there was little chance of success. You made the choice you thought would best defend the Earth and your friends."

"And failed," Usa added pitifully. "I thought I could contain Metallia. I thought - - but she found that stain in me, that same taint that Wise Man found."

"Maiden, we are all weak in some manner," Helios told her. "You are no different, nor am I. Your father is a great, great man and you saw how easily Beryl corrupted him into her puppet."

"Mom would have been able to do it," Usa said distantly.

Helios lowered his head. "Your mother is," Helios conceded, "a truly unique individual."

"And I'll never be her," Usa whispered and Helios could sense her beautiful dream, the one that connected her to him for years, withering. "Maybe that's what Desdaemona was wondering. Maybe she was wondering if I could be trusted with power. Obviously I can't. I keep messing it up. I've messed it up all my life. It seems like the harder I try to be like her, the more I mess up!"

"Maiden," he said, his hand resting on her shoulder, "you will never be your mother. But to equate that with failure is incorrect."

"Is this where you tell me to be the best me I can be," Usa asked, touching the hand on her shoulder, "and I'll have the chance to surpass Mom? Haven't heard that before."

"It is true, Maiden. In that you may believe."

"Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder if I can truly be even a tenth of what she is. I wonder if it's worth it - - if it's worth all the effort, worth trying over and over again."

"It is," Helios whispered. "You do not see the potential others see within you. The seeds of greatness are planted within you. Desdaemona would not have come unto you if your destiny was solely one of failure and destruction."

"Then how do I get there? Everything I try seems to blow up!" The girl let out a huge breath of fatigue. "Maybe I just have to stop being a love-sick little girl and really apply myself. Maybe it's - - time to put frivolity away and grow up."

"Potentially a wise assessment, Maiden," Helios said. She could feel him against the back of her head. "I would, though, caution you on one thing. In your zeal to become serious and mature, I pray you do not lose that kind heart and loving spirit that I and so many others have fallen in love with. To exchange these for power and prowess would be a poor exchange indeed."

Without waiting for a response, Helios reached over and put her computer station into sleep mode. Usa looked up to him, hopeful that he could say some magical words of wisdom and guide her to the goal she sought, a goal that seemed at the moment to be light years away from her.

"Come, my love," he said, holding out his hand to her. "You have despaired long enough. There is a wonderful blanket of stars in the sky this night and I know of a place where they may be observed more closely than you think humanly possible."

"Where?" Usa asked.

"My back," Helios smiled and transformed into Pegasus.

"I really should get back to work," Usa demurred.

"Maiden," the equine thought to her, "once again you try too hard. Maturity will come, but it cannot be forced. If you grip too tightly . . ."

"I just," Usa began, "I just said I need to be more dedicated and less frivolous. Weren't you listening? And I don't think I'll be good company."

Pegasus bent in and nuzzled behind Usa's ear with his nose. The Princess giggled involuntarily.

"Maturity comes from more than work and discipline," Pegasus thought to her. "It comes from embracing the wonders around us. You can learn many things from many sources other than an information file on a computer. Come with me and I will show you a new perspective. Or perhaps one you have only forgotten in your desire to be perfect."

When she didn't respond, he nuzzled behind her ear again. That caused the teen to bolt to her feet.

"OK, OK!" she exclaimed, pointing at him with annoyance. "But STOP TICKLING ME!" Then she softened. "I know what you're trying to do, Helios. Thank you. And maybe you are right." She climbed up onto the equine's back. "OK, show me something. But Pop's going to want me back by ten."

"I shall try, Maiden," Pegasus thought to her as they passed through the walls of the palace and out into the night sky, Diana happily watching them from below. "But when I am with you, I fear I lose my sense of such things."

Usa leaned forward, draping her arms around the equine's neck as they climbed high above the evening lights of Crystal Tokyo. As she felt the muscles of Pegasus's back surging and knotting between her legs, Usa thought that as long as this magnificent being stayed by her side, perhaps she did have a chance to be something - - remotely - - like her mother.

* * *

Pluto walked the empty limbo that contained the Door Of Time. Returning the time line to what had been had taken a great deal out of her. Were it not for the assistance of the Princess, Pluto was fairly certain she would have died restoring things. Even with that assistance, she felt a fatigue that she rarely felt anymore. Her sentry post was a solitary one and right now that was a good thing: it would be good to use the solitude to rest and recover from her exertions. Pluto took three more steps, then stopped. Her hand tightened imperceptibly on her Time Staff.

"You come to me?" Pluto asked without turning around. "Here?"

"I was curious," Desdaemona replied calmly. Pluto turned to her, examining the being warily.

"Am I to be tested now?"

"And if you were," Desdaemona responded light-heartedly, "would you react differently?" Pluto eyed her suspiciously.

"What are you curious about?" Pluto asked.

"Your Princess Usagi."

"I thought you had learned all you wished," Pluto said, eyes narrowing.

"From her, yes," Desdaemona answered. "That is why I come to you."

"Speak, then, and I shall endeavor to sate your curiosity," Pluto told her.

"What is it about her that inspires such loyalty from beings such as yourself and from the Guardian of Dreams?" Desdaemona asked and Pluto could see a confusion in the entity that Desdaemona was not used to experiencing. "Why would you both willingly expend your very existence to perpetuate her? Perhaps Helios is ignorant of such things, but surely YOU have seen what she can become?"

"I have," Pluto replied with a hint of personal pain.

"And yet you defend her?"

"Yes," Pluto said, her chest swelling with pride. "For I have seen all that she can become. The difference between us, Desdaemona, is that I see the journey's conclusion, while you linger upon a fork along the path."

"Do I?" Desdaemona asked, again with that maddening smirk of hers. Nothing could be read from her pupil-less eyes, yet Pluto studied her.

"Another layer?" Pluto asked. "Beyond mere curiosity?"

"Everyone thinks I do not see the potential of lesser beings," Desdaemona began. "I do. I merely do not assign a personal value to it as others do. This being, your Princess Usagi, has the potential for greatness within her - - and the potential for great destructiveness as well. I have seen this, as have you. And now . . ."

"So has she," Pluto finished the thought with surprise. "A warning?"

"A lesson," Desdaemona demurred. "She is, of course, free to interpret the lesson as she sees fit. Perhaps she will choose to learn from it and take her path in one direction. Perhaps she will ignore it and take her path in another. The choice is hers. I have done this for other beings in similar situations as hers. Should I not give her the same opportunity?"

"But in doing this, have you not altered her path already?" Pluto remarked. "And in doing so, altered the future as well?"

"I have closed off a branch," Desdaemona replied. "The future you guide her to is still there, as is the future you hope to guide her away from. And now other branches exist, other paths for her to take if she chooses." Desdaemona turned to Pluto and said earnestly, "It should prove quite interesting." A smile sprouted upon the red being's face. "Come now. Do not be so aghast. Ultimately I care not the fate of this girl or her people. I have seen worlds come and go, and beings who both grow into their power and position and those corrupted and destroyed by them. This world is no different to me than a million others past and future. But I will leave you with advice I left another: Beware of emotional entanglements with lesser beings. At best, they cloud your vision, and at worst they will be your undoing."

And Desdaemona faded away. Sailor Pluto returned to her station and continued to plan for the future.

THE END


End file.
